Christmas Party

Once again, I neglected to take any photos of our actual guests, but I got some great shots of the table!

Clockwise from top left (more or less): Tortilla chips, Mexican layered dip, peanuts, cookies, crackers, cookies, Anonymama's cheese ball, pigs-in-blankets, cheese, cheese & crackers, pretzel/Hug/M&M treats, M&Ms.

The party went really well, although it wrapped up a bit earlier than usual. I think that can be attributed to the fact that most of our guests had kids with them, and the weather.

It was sleeting pretty good by the time people left, and I'm sure the drive home wasn't very fun for anybody. We were a little worried about them being out on the road, and asked those with any significant distance to drive to give us a call and let us know when they got home.

That one couple that I mentioned earlier were the only ones who officially cancelled because of the weather, but there were a couple of others whom we were expecting to see that never showed up; we're assuming they decided to just stay put, as well.

Cheesy pigs-in-blankets. When I served them at Halloween, I thought of them as mummies, but as I was making them this afternoon, it occurred to me that they looked like lots and lots of little tiny Baby Jesi, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The cheese shreds are the straw from the manger. Am I going to hell for that?

We ended up with eleven adults, including ourselves, and five kids - Shrike's sister, her parter and their two kids; Shrike's cousin, her partner and Baby R; LiPA and her gang; our neighbor from across the street, and a couple of other friends.

I love these "NOEL" dishes; this year they were filled with M&Ms. A couple of years ago, I also used 3/4 of them a few weeks later for a New Years party, and just spelled "ONE." Yeah, that was kind of dorky.

The kids played well together, and little Baby R was even able to sleep for a good while, in the guest room right across the hall from our bedroom, where the four big kids were - well, I really have no idea what they were doing, but it involved a lot of noise, and a request for our used wrapping paper from the gift exchange (I think there was a "paper fight"), and we found potato chips in our bed.

I've decided to call the pretzel/Hug/M&M treats "Mrs. Claus' Nipples." The other name is way to long and, seriously, look at them. (Am I going to hell for that?)

We had a ton of food left, as usual, so if anyone wants some leftovers, just let me know. I'll pack them up and send them right off!