About Christmas parties

Because on Wednesday, I had two in one day, and I'm not over them yet. Next time you see I've helped planned two parties for one day, just slap me. Because I deserve it.

Even though we had a good reason for having them both on the same day: an outside editor was in the office on Wednesday, so it was nice to include him. (He usually "attends" meetings, etc., by concall.) And we had the ladies' party Wednesday evening because so many people were busy other nights.

Stuck.

The first party was a breakfast carry-in. I was responsible for party favors, and found angel mugs filled with tea or candy for everyone. Yea me! I had signed up to bring donuts, so that necessitated a stop before work to pick up a dozen. My dozen donuts joined a feast of egg cassaroles, breakfast cheesecake (OMG. Topped with crunchy cinnamon), fruit, bagels, coffee cake, and more. I'm not a big breakfast eater, but when faced with breakfast cheesecake, I give in. We had so much food, we had breakfast the NEXT morning, too.

After work, it was the ladies' party, off-site. This necessitated a mad dash home, packing up the car with the foodstuffs procured the previous day, remembering all the other stuff I said I'd bring, jumping in the car and tearing to the restaurant to pick up our main courses, and fighting traffic to the party room.

Whew.

I was a little late, but again walked into a feast: appetizers of cheese and crackers, shrimp, bruschetta bread, summer sausage, pretzels and more. Champagne and wine. Salad, pasta, and bread. Mini-cream puffs for dessert.

Whoa.

We had an ornament exchange after, and did one of those games where a person opens an ornament, then the next person can either pick a new one, or "steal" another one from someone that's already been opened. Hostilities almost broke out when certain particularly beautiful ornaments changed hands several times, but cool heads prevailed and an armistice reached. But I really did want that reindeer ornament in the cool box. Dang!

I survived both parties, though exhaustion has become my friend, and I've got a party or two to go. So I'll be taking my vitamins and trying to go to bed early.

How about you? Are you partied-out?