Oops!

-
When I saw I wrote a post on December 17, I assumed I wrote about our party. But it was just a link to us being elfed. That site is no longer available. Sorry if you missed it. And now I'll tell you about our party.

Everyone had a great time. The big problem is we were expecting 33 people and only 19 actually showed up. A few people contacted us to say they couldn't make it, and I'm fine with that. Things happen. But a number of people didn't call. That annoys me greatly. Don't RSVP and then not show.

The party was such a success that we've decided to make it an annual thing. We've already got plans for next year's do. We're trying to learn from this year's experience and make improvements. For instance, we're going to have it a week earlier. Yes, it puts it only nine days after Thanksgiving, but some people couldn't attend because of conflicting office parties. Chances are good we won't have that problem if we move our party up a week.

Another thing we're changing is the menu. We did finger foods this time, thinking it would be easier. The result was that Steve (bless his soul) spent over two hours cycling them through the oven! And I spent hours making 15 different types of cookies! The idea was that people would take the cookies home. Very few did. Even after Andrea happily took about half the cookies home with her, we still had dozens of cookies here. I've got three trays of untouched pan cookies in the freezer! So no finger foods or cookies next year. For one, I hope to be in grad school and I won't have the time. For another, I don't want Steve slaving over the stove for hours. So we've concocted a menu that should both impress and spare us too much work during the party. And the cost will probably be about the same as we spent this time.

In conclusion: Christmas in the Boonies was a rousing success.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time to drop the curtain

-
When my Mom passed away in March 2018, my zest for this blog fell dramatically. She was my biggest fan and enjoyed combing through the photos I'd post. But I tried to continue on because my Aunt Jody also enjoyed the blog. Well, she passed away early last year. It's time to call it for this blog. The hubby and I moved to Ireland late last year and I have ideas for an ex-pat in Ireland blog. When we were considering the move, I found little current blogs on the subject. I'm thinking maybe I can fill a gap. But Back and Forth Across the Pond is done now. It was fun and I hope you enjoyed it. Hail and well met. Deanne
Read more

Inverewe Gardens

-
Image
We stopped at Inverewe Gardens on our way home at the recommendation of one of Steve's work mates. It's a property within The National Trust for Scotland, so admission is free to Trust members. We had been pondering joining since we first moved here and decided to just bite the bullet and sign up whilst we were at the gardens. We only have to visit about four more places to have the membership pay for itself. Since the Culloden Battlefield near us in Inverness is part of the Trust, and our membership also grants us access to England's National Trust locations, we figure our membership will end up saving us quite a bit within the year. Inverewe Gardens was once the estate of Osgood Mackenzie. He built his mansion house on a rocky promontory overlooking Loch Ewe in the mid-19th century. He dreamed of having a walled garden of flowers and vegetables and set about excavating a raised beach and building retaining walls and terraces. By 1870, Osgood had created a productive gar...
Read more

Bus, Wall, Pavement, and Park: A Wander Around York

-
Image
The heatwave finally came to an end on our final day in York. It was offered much appreciated relief. We had afternoon tea scheduled in the mid-afternoon, so we broke our day. The morning included an open-top bus tour and a wander along the city's medieval wall; and the afternoon included a stroll through a surprisingly expansive park. We bought a ticket for one of the ubiquitous Hop On-Hop Off bus tours. Pretty much every major city has one of these. Heck, Inverness has one! The ticket is good for 24 hours, so you can actually use the bus as transport if you want. That had been our original intention, but we ended up just doing the hour-long tour and that was the end of it. But we enjoyed it. And I saw bits of York I had never seen before. And learned some interesting tidbits. The tour was broadcast in English, but if you had headphones you could select other languages. Like Kids English  and Yorkshire. When the "bus" part of the day was o...
Read more