Friends Christmas

This coming Friday night will be one of my favorite nights of the year! How do I know that?

Well, it's my friends christmas - where my friends from high school; Faith and Janice - along with their families and I have our annual get-together.

It is always a fun night, even though we've been doing it forever (really, I can't remember when we didn't do it!) A guaranteed fun night.

Every year it's at a different house, but has usually been at Faith's or Janice's. I've hosted it twice in the past 15 years. Now that two of Faith's kids have their own homes, we've been able to spread it out a little bit more. Last year was Tim and Becky's year to host and the year before that was Rachel and Mike's turn.

This year will be Faith's turn. We'll have our usual appetizers while everyone is arriving. Then dinner (no idea what it will be this year) and we usually play Trivial Pursuit (boys vs. girls.) Intermingled in there is lots of talking, laughter and catching up. I'd like to say that the game is the highlight of the night, but all aspects of the night are fun. I especially enjoy Faith and Janice working in synch with each other and getting completely off track as they try to answer our question. There are a couple of attendees that seem to be bothered by that, (which is something that I can totally understand) but I end up enjoying their annoyance as well. It is what it is and I've learned to appreciate it over our many years of friendship.

Last year we added a new element which was a great deal of fun. It's called a Yankee Swap and everyone was instructed to bring a gift wrapped present of about $10 in a brown paper shopping bag. Now this bag had to be folded over and stapled with 3 staples!! There were more details than I am sharing right now but it was quite fun. I took it one step further and wrapped my gift to resemble a brown shopping bag, which was quite clever if I do say so myself.

As the kids have gotten older, it's been more difficult to get everyone together. Joseph is home from school in Minnessota. The next day Kimmy heads to Florida. The math that goes into figuring out which night works out best for about 15 people is more than I can do, that's for sure. It's always disappointing when someone is missing. This year we should have full attendance, and that makes me very, very happy.

Very much looking forward to a fun night with fun people who I love dearly.