Christmas Party/Meet Baby Santa Pope

Jeffrey and I decided to throw a Christmas dinner party for some of our friends this year. While thinking in my "Party Persona" I quickly made a list of our 48 closest friends that I would like to invite for dinner. Jeffrey encouraged me to use my "Common Sense Persona" (who is neither as fun nor spontaneous) to make a list of a smaller group of people that we could actually fit in our two bedroom apartment and feed for less the cost of a month's rent. Reluctantly, I agreed, but I stood firm that we should use the china and the crystal. (I mean, if you're not going to use it at Christmas, when are you going to use it? When the president comes over for tea?)

The evening was wonderful (I thought). We had fourteen guests for dinner (fifteen including little baby Tyson, who I will talk more about later) and had a lovely time. Jeffrey helped me cook a ham, green bean casserole, hot apple cider, and two rich desserts, and some of our invitees brought some other great sides. Some of my favorite comments of the night:

"Ooh--it smells like Christmas in here!" -Shannon F.
"Chili's molten chocolate cake has nothing on your chocolate lava cakes." -Steven H.
"Richie, why are you wearing clown socks?" -James F.
"Could you rub my shoulders?" -Blake J. to my husband
"So I walked into the police station and asked them to walk me to my car because there was a big scary deer out there." -Carly K.
"Bye, Buddy! Hope you find your dad!" -Sea creature on the movie "Elf"

It was a night of lots of laughter, that's for sure. One of the biggest laughs came when Alexandra gave Christian and Shannon a little Santa outfit for baby Tyson. The suit was adorable, but the hat was too small so it sat up tall on his head. He looked like a little Santa Pope!



Thanks to all our friends that came to celebrate the season with us. We love all of you, and we hope you have a lovely holiday season. You each mean something special to us.