Christmas Party Weekend!

This weekend was full of Christmasy-ness!  Friday night was my mom and stepdad's Christmas cocktail party at their house.  It was SO much fun, even though my mister couldn't come due to having to work late :(  But I had a GREAT stand-in date, one of my favorites, Mrs. Alysia Milam.  We were a pair of hot dates if I do say so myself!  The party was so fancy and Christmasy, my mom had it catered from their country club and the food was PHENOMENAL.  I should've taken a picture.  But of course, I didn't.  I did take SOME though, so at least I get a little credit ...

How do you like my clown ruffle neck dress?  I love ruffles.  And apparently clown necks.  It's probably over the top, but I am most of the time, so this is no exception.  And PS - I'm SO proud of my silly and her big chunky necklace.  Funny side note story:  when she and my brother got engaged, I think I'd been married to Matt for about 3 years ... we were at a Holiday Bazaar and I was ooohhhing and ahhhing over these big chunky fun necklaces and bracelets.  She was next to me looking at the tiniest little dainty necklaces and I remember saying "Erin (we weren't sillies yet) you would look SO cute in this!"  And she said "I don't know if I can do anything that big, I usually wear small dainty things" and I just kind of giggled because I remembered being the SAME way before I got married and said "Give yourself a year or so after you get married, you won't understand it, but your taste will suddenly change and you will LOVE it" ... and I'm happy to say that they've almost been married 2 years and my silly is wearing a fun chunky necklace that SHE picked out and loves and looks SO cute in!

The next day we co-hosted a Christmas party with the Currans.  It was SUPER fun.  And SO easy I might add.  Evite, BYOB, easy appetizers and desserts = easy fun way to get together and not spend a ton of money.  Of course this is all easy for me to say when it wasn't at my house.  But Alli was SO calm and collected and her house looked FANTASTIC!  Here are a few visuals ...

And that's a wrap-up of the Christmas party weekend.  I realize it's pretty much me, in the same pose, with a different person in every picture, but hey, you do what you can.  On Sunday we went to my Mamaw's house to play White Elephant.  We have done this every year since I can mentally remember Christmas.  When we were kids, we used to just get a toy of some sort from my mom.  I can't remember what age we were when we graduated to being able to play (I really think it was when I went off to college ... sad) but I love it and it's something I look forward to every year.  There were 30 people playing, which is really almost twice that because a lot of us play as couples.  There was a lot of stealing, laughing and general shenanagins going on.  My family is a hoot.  I just love them.  Oh and of course I didn't get any pictures of it.  Dangit.  I was too busy having fun, stealing, laughing and taking part of the shenangins.  I wound up with this CUTE black shrug thing.  I had been battling back and forth at the end for a bag FULL of lottery tickets.  You know, the scratch off kind?  Every year they are the MOST stolen item and last year we got them and ended up with nothing, but it was just the idea that was so much fun.  What IF there was one in there worth $20,000?  Just what IF?  Anyways, I got them stolen from me and then I'd get them back, and then I'd get them stolen.  We had a pretty good system down, once I'd get them taken, I'd go take another item (back massager) that was getting stolen a lot as well.  As soon as I'd get it, someone would take it and I'd take the tickets back.  There were 30 people and RIGHT at 29 someone stole my back massager, which was the plan, but it was the THIRD STEAL.  Which meant I had to pick from the pile.  It's okay though, I ended up with a cute black shrug and more than likely would've ended up with $3 in redeemable tickets.  It was a LOT of fun.  And next year, I'm bringing lottery tickets.  That's all from the Fulmer Lane.  Happy Christmas Week everyone!!!