We put the kids to work with the preparations. Here's Noah smashing candy canes for the hot chocolate toppings bar, entertaining himself by shouting, "I'll show YOU, candy cane!"
Noah and Shelby were also in charge of the grapes dipped in caramel. And they actually did make more than they ate!
Anyway, we thought, oh, it will be nice to have a couple of friends drop in for a cup of hot chocolate and chat a bit, then move on, while a few more dropped by. You know, a nice and peaceful and casual evening.
But ummmmmmm, as Shelby stated, "I think everyone on all the Earth who wasn't sick came to our party!"
We were overwhelmed by just how many of our local friends came by! And you all came pretty much all at the same time, within about 20 minutes of the start time. And then, ummmmmmmm, you didn't really leave after just a little while and one cup of hot chocolate. But like I said, overwhelmed in a great way!
This was just the beginning…. and these are the only photos I had because after that I couldn't even get to my camera on the kitchen counter!
And sorry to those who couldn't find parking on our street (!), and sorry to anyone in addition to the Blanches who actually TRIED to leave after a while but couldn't because they couldn't get back to our front door. Sorry, but that cracks me up. In a good way! I'm glad you stayed longer, Amy!
Love this photo of Kent (left) hanging with the kid crowd watching The Polar Express. And now that I think about it, that is the EXACT spot where we found hot chocolate spilled on the carpet …. Hmmmm.
Rosie brought us a blinged out Christmas disco ball, knowing we were disco ball aficionados (after seeing one hanging in our car). Fabulouso! I hung that right up to add to the festivities going on at the stove with Mark, the hot chocolate brewer.
We also collected over 50 homemade snowflakes to send to the new school the Sandy Hook CT students will begin attending in January. We have amazingly talented snowflake-making friends!
We bought 3 big ole' cans of hot chocolate mix and EIGHTY cups! I thought we'd have oodles of extra stuff. But nope, when the last guests left, we had ONE cup left. We used up 79 cups???? I do feel horribly guilty about all that styrofoam in the landfills. 79! Eeeep! But there wasn't even enough hot chocolate left to fill that last cup anyway!
And thank you to those guests who brought food even though I told everyone not to worry about that. Because we ran out of food at about 40 minutes. Crikeys! And I consider myself a pretty decent party planner. FAIL on that one, Estelle! But you all stuck around anyway!
We let visiting kids go play upstairs and evidently a second party was going on in Shelby's room, unbeknownst to all of us. When Shelby discovered the state her room was left in, she, in all her fussiness, exclaimed, "My room is a wreck! I just can't live like this!" Drama much, little girl??
Some of you worried about our cleanup afterwards, but you didn't know that we had our own free in-house cleaning crew, Tiki & Wolfie. They are quite excellent and I highly recommend them.
While the cleanup crew worked, Mark and I had time to get a late night dinner at Taco Bell, come home and put our feet up and watch the finale of Next Iron Chef.
This is a great time of year, and we are blessed to have great friends. Thank you one and all for coming out and visiting with us.
See you next year! :)
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