(exhale)

I had intended to post this at naptime today, but alas...my pictures are too big and I have to spend hours resizing so they won't fight with blogger...so now I've given the children a choice between two activities that will give me time to post these - a bath or a movie. And which do you think they chose? :)

Anyway, I am officially still wearing my pajamas adnd it is almost 7pm. Today was the first day in what felt like a long time that I didn't have anything that HAD to be done. We even had a fridge full of leftovers, so I didn't even have to think about meal planning or cooking. That rocks. This last week has kind of been a blur, and I suppose that's normal, what with it being December and everything. Except that we don't live in America and you think somehow we'd avoid that holiday rush or something, but it has seemed to follow us here.

I'm certainly not complaining - our holiday rush is a bit different, I suppose. We are definetly in the throes of the holiday season and yesterday evening hosted the first of three Christmas parties that will be at our home. And that's my subject for this evening - a Christmas party for asianese people. :)

The truth is, there are lots of ways that we are different from asianese people. Our ideas of "leisure time" provide one of the most stark examples, at least in my opinion. When I think of how I would want to spend an evening with friends, I'm imagining a cozy living room, a quiet coffee shop or bookstore, or an evening out at a restaurant with a few couples. All of these ideas to me offer quality time in an environment that is friendly to deepening relationships. "Time with friends" here usually means the loudest and liveliest way possible, often involving lots of alcohol or places that are packed to the gills with other merrymakes, thereby adding to enjoyment. These are situations we do not do well in.

I've hosted parties at my house before that would have fit in perfectly with my life in Oklahoma - quiet, just a few people whom I want to know better, brownies, candles, you get the idea. And they were flops. I mean, not that nobody had a good time, but they just weren't "asianese". I resolved this year would be different.

So this party was centered around my house helper, because so many of her close friends and family don't see Life the same way she does now and she hoped they'd have another chance to hear about it. New Leaf Issue #1 - I had her invite as many people as possible, no limitations. New Leaf Issue #2 - I didn't shy away from kids (something I have done in the past). New Leaf Issue #3 - I used group activities that would be loud and boisterous.

Might I say...the party was a great success? We're still awaiting results on the true measure of its success, but it looks on the outside like a success. There was noise, chaos, tons of people talking and shouting at once, kids running everywhere, balls flying across the room, an enormous mess...by asianese standards, definetely a success!! (Actually, we enjoyed it too, but don't tell anyone!)

So, the total body count was in at 12 adults and seven children, setting a record for the eggroll home. We had fab christmas decorations (thanks to josh's mom!) and napkins (that people opted to take home as a souvenir instead of using (!), decorated sugar cookies, we played a Christmas Trivia game, read the christmas story, sang carols, and somewhere in between those activities, every morsel of food I had on my table vanished.

Here's the photo recap:

Emma surveying the food, most notably the very tempting cookies begging for her artistic inspiration...

Emma finally giving in to a picture with our friend Amy's house helper, also a new sister (this was emma's first of 34, 859 requests last night)

Some of the kids decorating cookies...

Most of the women and most of the kids, crowded around the food...

...while the men sat in the living room and talked...

Several times throughout the evening I coudln't find emma at all...then I saw her over at the table, spooning the icing out of the icing bowls with her fingers and picking up the sprinkles and eating them directly...who needs the cookies when you can get so much sugar that way?

Playing our Christmas trivia game...

Getting ready for a group picture...

The group picture - a must, it seems. :)

Me and my friend (also my house helper)

And with emma...
My handsome husband and a little friend...

Finally, as the festivities died down and the sprinkles from the cookies had been satisfactorily sprinkled all around the house, everyone started making their way home around 10pm. Emma and samantha, full of sugar from their covert missions, acted as if it was 10am and not 10pm! We, on the other hand, were exhausted, but so thankful for the way everything went. We truly had a good time, and felt like we were faithful to the reason for having them. Next weekend we'll have another one, then our last one on Christmas eve. On Christmas Day, we'll go to our friend's preschool class to teach some songs and do some Christmas crafts. Whew, but what a great reason to be whew! about. :)

In other random news, here are cute cute pictures from recent days...

Last week, emma successfully used her chopsticks to actually get the food in her mouth, and I have pictures to prove it, but that will wait to another day. She was so jazzed!

ok, that's all for tonight.....