The Christmas Party

My work Christmas party is tonight. It's also the annual awards banquet. Since I'm a newbie it's my first one. It's been years since I went to a night time "office" Christmas party. The last place I worked, advised by Risk Management, quit having their night time party and switched to an alcohol-free compulsory (all inclusive) holiday lunch each year. It was nice, but you basically got up from your desk and went to the luncheon.

So, I can't wait to check out this party. Not to mention (but of course I am) that I ended up being included on the planning committee at the last minute. So, I'm all "inquiring minds" about it. I've heard some stuff about past parties and been given a preview of what, and who, to watch out for, but hearing is not the same as seeing something for yourself.

Have any of you got any good Christmas party stories to share? Alas, my office party history is quite bland. There was a dessert table mishap one year at the lunch where several desserts at the swanky restaurant we were at ended up on the floor, but since no alcohol or hair pulling were involved it's hardly mentionable.

The only truly scandalous story I have is about the time I had a bunch of my high school classmates over after the reunion party. (read -- the joint we were renting kicked us out at 1 a.m.) I invited everyone who wanted to come over to my house. Aside from the fact that the police were called at 3:30 a.m. to shut us down because we were noisy (completely NOT true) there was an "incident".

At one point in the evening when one couple was preparing to depart the female half of the couple asked for her purse that was in my bedroom. Since I was in the middle of a conversation I told her she could just go on ahead and get her purse. She explained she had already tried that and my bedroom door was locked.

I figured that someone had used the bathroom in my master bedroom and inadvertently locked the door and pulled it shut behind them. So I reach for the skeleton key we keep on the top of the door jamb (because I had small children at the time and they had a tendency to lock themselves in) and unlocked the door. Uh, yeah, big mistake. We'd knocked on the door several times prior to unlocking it to be sure someone wasn't inside, but when no one answered I went ahead and unlocked the door.

A couple stepped out of the room. Well, couple may be the wrong word seeing how HER husband and HIS wife were in my living room with the rest of the guests. Yeah, talk about awkward. Yikes! Swear to God, true story, my house. So when the cops showed up about a half an hour later due to noise it was sort of anti-climatic.

Oh and to clarify, the noise wasn't people, or even music. A couple of guys from my class (okay about 4 of them) rode their Harleys to my house. Four Harleys coming and then going in the wee hours apparently disturbed one of my neighbors...and I know who, not that I'm holding a grudge or anything neigh on these many years later.

So, what was my point? Oh yeah, I've never had anything half so interesting, shall we say, happen at a Christmas party. So what about you?

When I was 18..

I know I said I was going to do my review of SUGAR DADDY for today. I actually have it done and will post it in the next couple of days, but I saw this yesterday on Holly's site and had so much fun doing it and listening to the songs again (don't you just love YouTube?) that I wanted to post my music list.

This is the list of the top 20 from the year I turned 18. I was surprised how many of these I remember and loved! This was fun. For your enjoyment, if you can be arsed, you can listen to the number one song while reading my list.

Here's the scoop. Go to popculturemadness.com. Click on pop music category and then click on the year you turned 18. Copy and paste the TOP 2O and then bold the ones you liked, strikeout the ones you hated and italicize the ones about which you were neutral. The ones you’ve never heard will stay unformatted



TOP 20 1972

1. Rock and Roll part II - Gary Glitter (oh yeah baby!)
2. American Pie - Don McLean
3. Lean On Me - Bill Withers (I love Bill Withers. My sister recently put this on a mix CD for us)
4. Rock and Roll - Led Zeppelin (Can you say CLASSIC!)
5. I'll Take You There - Staple Singers (Help me now...uh-huh...I'll take you there!)
6. Precious and Few - Climax (I danced to this song so many times in that single year between dances and parties I have dreams of shuffling around a dance floor with my head on some unknown anonymous male shoulder)
7. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
8. Coconut - Nilsson My brother's obsessive playing of this ruined it FOREVER!
9. Schools Out - Alice Cooper
10. Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul
11. Layla - Derek and the Dominoes
12. Goodbye To Love - Carpenters
13. Burning Love - Elvis Presley (Saw him in concert in Vegas when this was hot!)
14. The Candy Man - Sammy Davis, Jr. (I started out loving this song, but it got too much radio play)
15. Operator - Jim Croce (I went through a Jim Croce phase like everyone else)
16. Horse With No Name - America (Saw them in concert a couple years later)
17. Nights In White Satin - Moody Blues (Our senior class song and prom theme!)
18. Anticipation - Carly Simon
19. Saturday In The Park - Chicago (an unfortunate date to a concert in 1976 ruined this group for me forever)
20. Get On The Good Foot - James Brown To say I don't get this one is an understatement.

Bonfires

Remember the good old days of high school when you had a big game coming up and the school would have a bonfire night during the week to stir the school spirit to a fever pitch for the big game?

Well this week is homecoming at my son's high school. So cute E-mo kid decides he will reluctantly conform and go to bonfire. Why?

Not to cheer on the school. Hell no!!! The natural enemy of an E-mo kid is the Doo-Bro. (Jocks who buy clothes at Pac Sun stores). Doo-bros play football. Cute E-mo kid does NOTcheer on the football team.

No he goes to the bonfire first, to hang out with his friends, in particular Alena, the girlfriend that I'm not supposed to know he has. Secondly, it IS night time and there IS a BIG fire at school. Which is code for--there is always the chance the winds will come up and blow a spark in the direction of the campus and...yipee, skippy doo-dah day...the school could burn to the ground.

Don't try to follow the logic. I get sucked in every day and usually end up with a headache.

So, since cute E-mo boy doesn't have a drivers' license yet me and the guy I live with decide to drive him out to the school, which is some distance from our house, and go hang out at my Dad's house, which is nearby. Dad is out of town. We figure, we will hang out at Dad's and start a little bonfire of our own. If you know what I mean.

Well, concientious neighbor Connie comes over before we even have lip lock and proceeds to fill me in on the neighborhood goings on. She includes my brother's visit the previous weekend for his high school reunion when he used Dad's house. No duh, Connie, I was there!

In the mean time, the guy I live with is inside opening windows and doors to air the place out and instead of coming outside to rescue me lays down on Papa Bear's bed and takes a little nap.

After the 4th or 5th good bye and ringing ears, Connie talks at about volume level 14 on a scale of 1 to 10, I finally extricate myself from the friendly neighbor and go seek out that guy I live with. Yeah, he is prone---extremeties stretched to the four corners of the bed and snoring.

So I kicked his foot. Yes, I can kick that high! I kicked his foot and told him we had to leave to go pick up the kid at the bonfire. Who's parting words to us were...

"Don't be late. I don't want to be standing like a lonely loser in the parking lot!"

Poor kid, we've left him stranded soooooo many times. Puh-leeze! In my family we were always the last ones picked up. I never let my kids wait although cute E-mo boy tempts me frequently.

So no bonfire for me, however, cute E-mo kid came home with glitter all over his hoodie from the girlfriend that I don't know anything about. Something tells me, he got bonfire.