Party time!

Well, this weekend was the big Twelfth Night party at our house, Saturday night.  This is our annual post-holiday holiday party, which works out a lot better than it sounds, and a lot of the folks who were there commented on how nice it is to have it as a sort of winding down from the holiday season (and a last chance to see Christmas decor up).

We had about 25 people, I’d say.  There were some from Margie’s office, though none from mine; a passel of folks from the church; the usual circle of other friends.  My old college bud Keith showed up, too, which was nice.  People seemed to have a generally good time, ate a lot (though not enough) and drank convivially but mostly not to excess.

Margie did her usual faboo job with the food.  My job is to get the place cleaned and decorated and generally looking nice, but she does the stuff that everyone talks about afterward (and rightly so).  This year was “can I wrap bacon on that?” hors d’oevres, but there were plenty of other goodies for folks to nibble on, and glögg (and punch and beer and water and soda and wine) to wash them down with.

Things wrapped up in the late evening, and most folks left in about a half-hour period, with Stan and Randy and Dave S. wrapping up the evening with us chit-chatting in the family room.  Sutherland crashed in the guest room overnight (showing remarkable restraint when being presented with the graphic novel collection).  Margie and I were in bed around 1.

We skipped church Sunday morning, and instead did a bit of post-party clean-up.  Dave left around Noon or so, and then we had a few friends over for “Thirteenth Night,” the official post-part eat-leftovers gaming day.  Stan and Randy were there for most of it; Doyce came over with Kaylee for a few hours, too.  We played some Catan (since Margie got me Settlers / Seafarers / Cities&Nights for my birthday, plus the 5-6 expansions for each), which I inadvertently won.  Then we did a bit of Secret Santa gift exchange (including some Katherine and Kaylee gifts). Then we broke open the Turbo Cranium game — which Katherine insisted on playing along with us, and surprised everyone by doing impressively well.

Kicked back and chit-chatted, after getting Kitten to bed, then booted everyone out by 9, and hit the sack by 10, a long and exhausting, but fun, weekend completed.