Christmas Party 2009

Friday night…Mike and I got lost in Gatineau trying to get to the Costco to pick up some party supplies.  AKA beer.  Yes, Costco sells beer.  Anyhow, with a compass in hand, we managed to finally found it and loaded up a cart full of goodies.

When we arrived at home, Vero was in full prep mode cleaning up the house while Mike and I settled down with a rye in hand to finish the job of all jobs…the construction of the leg lamp.

You see, many moons ago, I found a mannequin leg in the dumpster behind my house.  It was from the lingerie store that had gone out of business.  Now, there were two of them, but I thought I would look silly carrying home two mannequin legs over my shoulder so I decided to take one (which was a silly, silly idea in hindsight).

Years later, we pieced together a decent lamp but it wasn’t complete.  We needed some basic items, like a high heel shoe.  With the leg in tow, Vero and I went to Value Village and tried on a dozen shoes before finding the magical Cinderalla slipper.  We went to the cash with $10 in hand for the pair and we asked if we could simply purchase one of them for $5.  The woman didn’t think this was funny but then I asked what would she do if I came in one with foot?  Vero laughed at the fact that I hadn’t thought about the fact that I would be a one-footed man buying a high heel shoe!

So we started to assemble the lamp and we hit a snag.  Did you know that in a high heel shoe, there is a steel plate in it?  Mike and I broke a drill bit trying to get through it before giving up 15 minutes later.  After some hard thinking, we realized that the only way to do it was to feed the electrical wire through the side of the shoe and not through the bottom.  With that knowledge, the lamp then came together fast…the frill was glued to the lampshade and we had a modern miracle of a lamp.  We then brought it upstairs, plugged it in, congratuled ourselves on a great job, and watched Dazed and Confused which I believe Mike and I can collectively recite every moment in the movie.

The next morning, we headed out to get some last minute things and prep for the party.  6PM hit and Vero and I had finally the moment of silence before the onslaught.  Matt showed up first and had brought us a book on Guitar Legends that he picked up at the bookstore (which was hilarious considering he had called me the day before asking what I would prefer if I were to receive such a gift).  Thanks for the book!  I’m sure Vero will love it.

Vero’s cousin Melissa and JF showed up and we started the mission of making some gluhwein which is a German concoction and translates to mulled wine.  We heated up the mixture and said hello to the numerous jackets that were coming through the door.  Vero was a saint greeting everyone, taking their coats, taking their gifts while Mike and I were concentrating on the gluhwein.  This was a delicate operation!

In the end, a crowd gathered around for the dousing of the sugar cone.  We place a sugar cone over top of the pot of wine and douse it in high alcohol content rum and light it on fire.  There may have been a moment of panic when I was dousing some and I got some on my hand and I realized that there were flames all about and screamed like a little girl.  Mike had to take handle of the operation for awhile after that!  In the end, it turned out beautifully and we enjoyed a mug of it outside (where a nice hot drink should be enjoyed!).

I then realized that the party was in full force and began making the rounds and saying hello to everyone.  I was getting some great compliments on my tacky Christmas sweater that Nanny Ruth had knit me.  I must admit that she outdid herself.  I am sure in the next few days there shall be photos of it up here to see.  I did have some stiff competition when Vince and Naomi (the reigning champs…well, Vince was the reigning champ) had constructed some excellent homemade sweaters themselves.  My favourite part was Naomi’s stocking that had Mike, Vero and my name on it.  If that couldn’t win them the contest, what else would?  In the end, they did win the contest against Melissa and I (who mysteriously enough had a sweater that matched my colours).  I’m going to believe that no one wanted us to win as it’s not much fun when a host wins.  But deep down inside, we all know Nanny’s sweater was the true winner!  Thank you Nanny!

As a host, the one thing I do not like about the Christmas party is that there so many people which makes it near impossible to chat with everyone!  It’s crazy!  I mean, I had a conversation with Alex about online storage at one point and I said I would be right back and I never did end up returning!  Sorry Alex!  We shall continue that conversation later.

It’s a shame that there was something wonky going on with the Media Center that night so the music would cut in and out and the photos from Christmas past didn’t seem to work out at all. Hopefully I can figure something out by next year.

The Trivia Challenge started a little late this year (around 10:30 – 10:45) so we definitely need to remember to start it a little earlier so that some people can leave fairly early after the gift exchange.  I don’t even think the gift exchange started until after 12:30!

Here are the standings thus far for the Palmer Trivia Cup challenge:
2005 – Guys
2006 – Tie
2007 – Girls
2008 – Guys

So the guys were breathing easy considering we had a lead.  Natalie helped me formulate the questions as I had been running out of time to do so.  She did an excellent job and they were quite tough.  Now that I think of it, there were only two questions people didn’t end up guessing.

1 – Who directed “The Nightmare Before Christmas”?
2 – From what country does ‘kissing under the mistletoe’ originate from?

It definitely was not a heated battle like the previous year was, which was quite funny to see.  There were no screamings of ‘cheaters’.  I realize that Ferda was not at the party this year and now wonder if she is the one who screams ‘cheaters!’ at the guys every year?  🙂

Vero had come up with a couple of great games…one involved a stocking of wrapped items that each team had to identify without unwrapping them.  This was quite interesting as the girls team (perhaps the guys did this as well but I wasn’t paying attention to them) used a zone defense method where a group of girls would try and identify an item.  So when I got their piece of paper with their answer, sometimes it would be the same item that they had already guessed correctly!  In the end, the girls beat the guys buy a slim margin.

The second challenge was born from a game played at Holly’s girls party.  It was a play on Rock-Paper-Scissors called Bear-Ninja-Cowboy, where each character could be beat, or can beat another character.  But we added a little Christmas flavour and played Santa-Jesus-Eggnog-Ralphie where Santa would be Jesus, Jesus would beat eggnog (making it into wine), Eggnog would beat Santa and Ralphie would simply shoot his eye out with his BB gun (never a good scenario).

This was quite the hilarious event and I had a good laugh when Ben and Krista showed up near the end and we threw Ben into the mix but he hadn’t seen the rules yet so we had to explain it to him on the fly.  He did successfully win it for the guys with a Jesus move I believe.  I could be wrong on this one.

The trivia challenge was nearly finished and it was at a tie.  The girls had given us a run for our money!  What to do?  Go outside for the final challenge!  We stood outside on the street around midnight (quietly, in fear of the cops coming to knock on our door) and it was quite chilly outside.  We had James dress up in a Santa outfit and he came running out the door and when he was half way down the block I released the hounds and had them participate in a Santa Chase.  The sight of Santa Claus running down the street being chased by a mob was quite a funny one and I will remember it for years to come.

We then held the Olympic Shotputting event where we had to shotput a small Christmas tree.  Three members from each team were selected and Mike and I got out the measuring tape.  Not to be unfair to the opposite sex, Vero found out that within Olympic rules, there is a factor of 0.75 difference between what a man and a woman would throw, so we took that into account.

We had some great throws and some great times outside.  Although Mike left his keys on top of his truck…good thing I spied them later on in the night when I went outside!

When we got back inside, people were getting restless for the gift exchange (it was 12:30 afterall) so we’ll have to start things earlier next year.  However, the calculations were made and the men won the trivia challenge by 0.8%!  Incredible victory for the guys!  So the score is now 3-1 for the guys.  Ladies, good luck attempting to beat us next year.

I must admit that I took some hosting duties in the kitchen while Vero handled the gift exchange so I really don’t know what was given out this year.  Rob did end up bringing his snowman plate which he is notorious for.  This year, however, he ended up with a few more surprises as Joelle had rallied the troops and a bunch of us bought him even MORE snowman related merchandise to add to his collection!  I am sure he was impressed!

The rest of the night ended quickly…a lot of people took off after the gift exchange was done (with just reason! It was quite late!).  The rest of the party was spread out amongst the house.  We headed downstairs to listen to some records and drink some holiday cheer.  We also popped in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation at the end of the night (my personal fave) and Matt, Mike and Melissa left around 4AM.

At final count, I believe there were 47 people at the party at a given time.  Once again, we forgot to get a picture of all of us until too late in the night so I would say half of the party got into a group photo.  I have to remember to do that after the Trivia Challenge is done!

All in all, another successful Christmas party was had.  I really don’t have any tips for future me, other than we never used any apple cider so I’m not sure if we need it next year.

Merry Christmas to all!  I’m heading up to Kap on Saturday and then Vero and I are leaving for Brazil on December 28 for two weeks.