Party Pooper

As if the holidays were not already crazy with to-do lists, Jay and I pack it in further with unending entertaining. We just can't get enough of our friends and family, I guess. Maybe it is the need to spread the love during this season. Perhaps we feel that entertaining is our way to give back to our friends for their gifts of love to us during the year. Since we both do not have the gifts of mercy, maybe we see this as some price for our lack of understanding or compassion throughout the year. Please forgive us, friends, now eat some cake. Or, possibly, we are just glutens for fun and frivolity. Of course, it might be the obvious. We have the best friends and family in the world and can't stand not having them with us, sometimes multiple times, through out the most wonderful time of year.

So, this evening, on January 1, after all of my immediate family has left the house, I plopped into a chair. 5 nights/days of entertaining this month and I am pooped. Time to gather up my house, put away the serving platters, pastry server, and take back the chafing dishes I borrowed from a friend.

I literally picked up our Christmas welcome mat this evening and didn't put our year-round one down. Not because visitors are no longer welcome. It is because Dixie decided to use it as her pee mat and after so many washings, it isn't coming clean.

Insanely, I am already thinking of our next "party." A family potluck soup and salad night with board games. Sounds like a perfect evening to occupy us during what is the longest cold snap our geographical location has experienced since 1977. Now ,where is my planner?