Final Party Of The Year

Saturday was our final Christmas Party of the year. December is such a busy month for us, especially this year. Had a party every weekend.

The last one is just a dinner party at our friends Dick & Joan. I had to bring a dessert, so I made a pumpkin roll. I had to make a practice one first as I have never make one before. My practice one turned out great and they are really easy to make.

Joan told me that there were 18 people coming to her party, so I made two pumpkin rolls. The first one turned out all right, just a minor tear in the loaf part but I was able to fix that with the cream cheese filling. My second roll was a disaster, it broke apart into pieces as I was taking it out of the pan. Wonderful, now what am I going to do. One pumpkin roll is not enough for 18 people. I had no choice but to buy something at the bakery.

Our party was on Saturday, we spent the night again at Dale & Kitty's, this would be the last chance to visit with them as they are leaving for Arizona for three months after Christmas.

We had some errands to run and were to be at the Butterfields at 4:00. Our party was at 5:30. Traffic was a nightmare in Billings. It took us 45 minutes to get to the mall from King Avenue. At the bakery I bought a pumpkin cheesecake loaf which went well with the pumpkin roll.

Got to the Butterfields on time, got some visiting in then we loaded up and made our way to Dick & Joans. Joan made her delicious lasagne and we had plenty of food. We had lasagne by Joan, a salad by Kitty, homemade hot butter rum by Vickie, my desserts, several loaves of garlic bread by the others.

There were 16 of us at the party, not sure who the other two were who did not come, but this is our little regular group. One of the couples invited are quite a bit younger than us. They are just in their 20's. He is the son of some friends who moved to Tennessee last year. The kids don't really fit in with this group. I'm the youngest besides these two.

The men sat in the livingroom visiting while us women were in the kitchen. At first the young girl wouldn't come and visit with us. Joan our hostess went to get her to come in but the girl said that she wasn't comfortable about the inappropriate conversation. Not sure what she meant by that. We weren't talking about anything inappropriate, just not putting our husbands on pedestals. We did say that if we wanted a husband project done around the house, just start on it yourself and then it will get done. If we wait for the husbands it wouldn't get done. The girl did make a comment about this being marriage. We pointed out that two women have been married over 40 years, one over 30, I'm over 20 and the others were in the teens. When you are newlyweds you don't talk about each other like this.

We did exchange gifts this year, Joan said to keep it under $10, the guys buy guy gifts and the women buy women gifts. Gary got an LED flashlight and I got a Harley necklace.

Joan did make a comment that she probably won't invite the young kids again as the girl doesn't really fit in. She apparently is an only child and led a very sheltered life. She was homeschooled and her family is very religious. The kids are flying to Tennessee to see his parents and she made comments about her being forced to go and she was pretty nervous about flying.

We did have a great time and are ready to just relax this weekend. Our next party is in January.