Holiday Open House

I woke up early (how I love this new policy of giving up hangovers!), and in a bit of a panic about glasses, napkins, ice, and toilet paper, decided to make a run to the grocery store. As it turned out however, I was a bit too keen, and when I got there it turned out that the store wasn't open until 11 AM, another 25 minutes from then. Since it would take me nearly 25 minutes to run home and come back again, there was really nothing for it but to hang around and wait. Kind of odd to just be hanging around in a small shopping mall full of closed stores, waiting for one to open!

I bought all of the necessary last-minute supplies and came home, to discover that Emily and her young man, Will, weren't yet awake. And I have to say I wasn't at all resentful that Emily didn't seem to be doing any party prepping whatsoever, but just confused, really. My mother has done this as well, just inviting tons of people over for a party, without seeming to give any real thought to setting up organizing, just figuring that things will take care of themselves. Hence, I was in a bit of a tricky spot, as I felt like I didn't just want to take over everything, but what else was I supposed to do?

Finally, Emily and Will did get up, and I finally got a chance to properly meet Will. Seems like a nice enough chap, one that I won't mind having around. Emily finally decided to make a contribution by putting togeter a playlist for the party. Which didn't include ANY Christmas music. For a holiday party. Ummm.... Forgive me if I sound ungrateful, but her methods of party preparation were utterly baffling to me.

People started arriving at around 3:15, with a couple arriving with their 11-month old baby. Then Tim made it back, and as everybody seemed to be requesting non-alcoholic drinks, we sent him out for some more soda water (as soda water and lime was our non-alcoholic offering for the evening).

Then Emily's brother Ben arrived, along with Freddie (8-month old) and Millie (3-year old), and Millie immediately took to going through Emily's shoe closet and trying on shoes.

I was kind of surprised as people arrived, Emily made absolutely no mention of what people should do with their coats, offering to take them or anything. Did she not think about this at all? I had cleaned my room to a pin, and so kept telling people to put their coats in my room, but unfortunately I didn't feel like I could charge up to Emily's friends and tell them to do so when they weren't doing it already. This led to a disaster later in the evening when people kept piling coats on our coat rack, which can hold maybe two coats on a good day. They knocked off and muffled the answer phone for the front door, so we had some people standing outside for 15 minutes trying to get in. Augh! Next time, I'll just have to be more forward about it and just take everyone's coats from them, I think!

My friend Will arrived (I was honestly surprised when he RSVP'd, even more so when he showed up), and then Sara brought some gluten-free brownies. Cat, a friend of mine from polo came, and Matt and Mo arrived, after some confusion where they were knocking on the next door neighbour's door looking for the party! My friends Nic and Ali arrived as well, which I was glad for, as Tim had been hoping to get a chance to catch up with Ali, so it was great that he came.

Kia, a girl I run with (actually known as Second Lady on the hash, as she's named for me) came, although asked for water, seeming a bit worse for wear after last night's party. Apparently the whole thing went on until 4 AM, with the party moving to this guy Rob's house. I don't know, I used to feel like I'd missed out when I missed the epic ends of parties, but I really don't anymore, just feeling smug for having gone home at a reasonable hour. I guess with age really does come wisdom...

Then Christian arrived, a Danish guy I'd done my course with at Oxford. I felt horrible, as due to the masses of coats on the coat rack, I hadn't heard the buzzer, and he'd been waiting outside for 15 minutes before he managed to get in! Yet, after I apologized profusely, it was lovely to see him, as he'd brought chocolates and helped me make some more mulled wine in the kitchen. (Luckily, as someone from Scandanavia, he was an absolute expert at it!)

I also discovered the huge downside of hosting a party where you invite all of your good friends: Given that you are the only person who knows everyone, it is up to you to be a good social hostess and make sure everyone is introduced to everyone else. You want to spend time talking to all of them, but instead you have to frantically circulate, trying to make sure that everyone is introduced to each other. I felt so bad for Christian, as he was left to introduce himself to Kia and make some good conversation, as I was running around trying to make sure everyone else was doing well...and he was someone I really wanted to talk to! I can understand why so many parties with hash people tend to just be other hash people, as at least we all know each other and don't need introductions like that. In the end, Christian and I agreed to meet up for dinner at the O&C in January to do a bit more of a proper catch-up... (Also another great part of being a member of the O&C, as it's a great excuse to invite people out to dinner, and everyone always wants to come! That club has really been so worth the money, I can't even begin to say how much it's benefitted me...)

My friend Marjanne arrived with another friend, although I was a bit frustrated in that I had difficulty getting them to circulate with others, although I was pleased that they brought Cava. (Quite a bit of Cava and Prosecco was circulating all evening, which of course I absolutely LOVED, as it's among my favourite things to have!) I actually asked Tim to open the bottle (as he wasn't being all that helpful, and I figured that it was a manly thing to do, to open the champagne), but when he glanced up at the ceiling to get a sense of how much clearance there was, I immediately snatched it back from him. What man doesn't know how to properly open champagne? So I worked it open myself, and was quite pleased with under my firm grip, the cork popped without even an audible "pop!", but just the gentle sigh of a properly opened bottle. Tim declared himself suitably impressed, as he well should be! (And he should really learn how to open champagne bottles, otherwise how on earth is he ever going to impress a girl?)

Still, I did manage to introduce Marjanne around a bit, and get her talking to Kia, so the hash people were all taking care of themselves at least!

I eventually found Tim and Will in the kitchen, bonding over making mulled wine, which I was glad that the two boys had a fun task to occupy themselves. Later in the evening, Will did spill a glass of mulled wine on the carpet, but we'd always known that was at risk of happening, so I didn't really mind. These things happen, I suppose! I was just so grateful to Will for coming, for being so willing to talk to everyone and be entertaining, and for taking over the job of making mulled wine for everyone, that I felt horrible that he felt even the slightest bit bad about the spill. He was practically taking over my job as host for me, which I was so appreciative of!

I was at first a bit troubled when people seemed to be coming and then leaving after only an hour or two, but as I think back on it, I realise that I'm the only hyper-social person I know, who stays until the end of every party I go to. Perhaps just coming to a party for an hour or two is more the norm? I hope so, otherwise I had everyone leaving my party early as they were bored...

My friends Kitty and Cookie arrived in the third-wave of guests to come, at which point I was realising that the downside of starting a party at 3 PM and having it go until midnight was that it meant you were committing yourself to staying through a 9-hour party. 'Twas getting a bit tiring!

I ended up talking to Kitty a bit about Pork Pie, and how he'd gone off to the Far East in search of enlightenment, and instead of coming back a better and more peaceful person, I felt like he'd come back a bigger jerk. I mean, how often does that happen? He's just drinking too much, and really just acts like an arse every time I see him. Although then Kitty raised a very good point with me, asking, "When do you just say he's acting like an arse and write him off, and when do you become a really good friend and realise something is wrong there?" She's got a point. What does it mean to be a friend, particularly when your friends are obviously going off the deep end?

We ended up turning on the television and watching the X-Factor finale (huge show here in the UK), and then afterwards Emily finally made her way to the piano to play some Christmas carols. Strangely, as we were all singing along, Tim didn't seem to know the words to anything. Perhaps he never went to church growing up? How strange. Although the singing was so lovely, that it made me wish we'd had more Christmas music playing earlier...

Finally, I said good-bye to Kitty and Cookie after a long inspection of the maps on the wall in my room, and put the beautiful roses Kitty had brought for me into water. We sat around with our last two guests for a bit while they waited for their train, where they talked a bit about my friend Will, and what an odd character he is. I don't know, as I will admit that Will has his peculiarities, but I'm incredibly fond of him, so I wasn't quite sure what to make of their finding humour in him. I adore Will, and hence am not too pleased with anybody saying anything that even seems mildly disparaging about him!

We then cleaned up as much as was necessary, I set up Tim's bed in the living room (why on earth did I have to do that? He's been being the strangest houseguest), and then we all flopped into bed ourselves. I stayed up long enough to see that I'd gotten a message from Leigh letting me know that Accenture had dropped its sponsorship of Tiger Woods. I love it how some guy I went to high school with is more up on our sponsorship deals than I am...