Tis the season of Christmas parties. Which is joyous…for those who enjoy that sort of thing. I WANT to enjoy them…it’s just that…well…if you know me, you know my personality is more “splash of spontaneous fun with a heavy hand of sarcastic bitterness”…so decking the halls and jolliness tend to give me a rash…BUT I love my friends. So, I spend Christmas parties with them and they laugh at my pain of being forced to participate in structured fun.
One of my most cheery and lovely friends, Lori, has an annual Christmas party that couldn’t be less Amy Mac. The invitation is sent out in a cutesy rhyme. There is a Chinese Gift Exchange. There are planned games…don’t get me wrong, I LOVE games…but I love “hey, let’s do game night” with beer and Catchphrase…not “OK LADIES!!! WHOOO!! EVERYONE PUT ON THEIR SANTA HATS!!!! WHOOO! READY FOR FUN!!! WHOOO” Ouch…but I love that my friends love it and I can’t help buy laugh at Lori’s sheer joy of hosting the event.
This year there were 8 different games (FUCKING EIGHT DIFFERENT GAMES). And we started at 8:07, so we were 7 minutes late to start, as you can imagine, this was very upsetting. Since these were restaurant people, most of the girls (all chicks) were 25 or under. This made the first game rather tricky…Lori, the hostess, is…ahem…NOT under 25…and the game was “guess who I am” where we were separated into teams and one person had a Santa hat on with a name on it and we had to give clues as to the identity…the problem presented itself when the names she chose were BETSY ROSS, CHER…not exactly the same demographic!
The game I really want to address is the “make yourself a snowman” game. The first things that were brought out for this game were latex gloves and Vaseline. I think you can see the downward spiral of this already. Two large mixing bowls were filled with cotton balls and the instructions were to smear the Vaseline all over your face, stick it in the bowl of cotton balls and whomever of the team of four got the most cotton balls was declared the winner. None of the 30+ crowd was about to smear Vaseline on our faces…after you hit our age, the idea of suffering a pre-teen breakout for bragging rights at a Holiday Party loses its appeal. This did not go over so well…so, to fight the “party pooper” image….it was proposed that a member of our team (who shall remain nameless) would rather “smear that on my ass and stick that in a bowl than put it on my face”. Another member of the team said “and I’d do my boobs first”. Well…let’s just say I’m sure there are pictures somewhere on the internet and I’d rather not know where.
Another game involved phallic plungers and rolls of toilet paper – but honestly, I’m trying to wipe all the fun right out of my mind. It’s too much to think about and my insurance doesn’t cover PTSD.
I’d like to make a special note to make sure Lori knows how much I love her and appreciate her effort – her house is decorated (I mean…FUCKING DECORATED) and she gives special gifts to everyone with attached notes…She cooks so much food….Martha Stewart would be embarrassed by her inadequacy if she knew Lori. I love her and I love the party…even though the whole experience makes me itch like I’m wearing pajamas made of ants.
Minor Fall 
Searching the internet for Vaseline, latex gloves, snowman, cotton balls, ass plunger…oh, should there another comma there…maybe not…I’ll let you know what I find. It can’t be any worse than 2 girls one cup, can it?
No, Natalie, it probably *IS* right.
the mental image i have in my head of this party is just not right.