Christmas Party



HOld on a second, I have to go on a rant about Christmas parties.  I want to precede my comments by acknowledging that I am a scrooge when it comes to these things and openly embrace that and these opinions are mine and mine alone and are not necessarily shared by lela.  I really don't like Christmas parties.  Lela and I were previously cursed as Deloitte and PwC always had their christmas parties in completely different places on the same night (both in denver and in KC).  So what that generally led to was us going to one of the two christmas parties fairly early, and being there with one of two groups - 1) the people who are nerdy (even for accountants) who don't understand you don't show up when the party starts and 2) the people who were trying to get a head start and who's sole purpose was to get smashed only they weren't smashed enough yet to be entertaining, only drinking heavily enough to remind you of the Fieldhouse parking lot on game days before they closed it down (Hawkeye fans, you know what I mean).  So we would stand there awkwardly with said parties and just as people started to show up, we would have to leave so we would be able to make the other one.  Oh and did I mention that generally we would either miss the food at the first party, or not think it was worthy of eating and wait for the second party which was always a mistake? 

So we drive the half hour to the other one (again, never close) and we show up to the second party, and every one is inevitably in their spot.  Food is generally gone, and drinks are waning.  People are generally either wasted to the point where they are annoying (not entertaining) to talk to or if they are more sober they are in the process of starting to make their way to the door.  I don't know how this works based on how the first parties always seemed to work, but it always seemed to work this way.  So we have various awkward conversations and eventually go home.  Oh and all of this was after Lela see sawed about which dress to buy/wear and whether it looked good after spending hours shopping for it.  Not to mention the fact we didn't have kids so childcare was not an issue.

So anyway, yeah, i generally hate Christmas parties.  Sprint luckily has mostly done away with them an we simply have a potluck at work.  Big fan of that.  And now, ATI had another decent plan.  Sunday early evening, kids are invited, business casual rather than cocktail attire.  At a place that is approximately 5 min from our house.  So basically it was the heaven of christmas parties in my opinion.  We were obviously worried that Emma would boycott naps that day or just decide she is bored, but she was perfect.   She got a little annoyed with her dress as she tripped over it some, but not enough to warrant more than a wimper.  Food was decent and we were even there to eat it!  So word to the wise, schedule christmas parties on Sunday's, allow kids, and make it near our house.  Thanks.

I will now do what annoys lela to no end, post a bunch of similar pictures.  In this case I think she will approve as it gives a bit of the story of Emma and her dress and all of them were decent also!