The annual Christmas Open House

Our annual Christmas open house was last night. Here's how it went:

What was different:
Normally we have it for our neighborhood. This year we were going to have it for our neighborhood on one night and our church family on another night. Due to various circumstances, we only had it for our church family. So next year we'll try to have it for both.

What I listened to on my iPod while I was preparing:
In my opinion, preparation music is really important to how efficiently and effective the preparation is so here was what I listened to: Carrie Underwood, Third Day Christmas Offerings, Metro Austin Unplugged. Yes, I realize Carrie Underwood isn't very Christmasy, but Joe gave me an early Christmas present of her newest CD and I could resist to listen. At one point I had a serious attitude problem, and so I needed a little praise/worship music to help adjust it---thus Metro Austin

What was on the menu:
chicken eggrolls, chips and salsa, cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, and pecan pie muffins

Minor glitches:
We were going to have BBQ meatballs, but I could only find Italian, so I switched at the last minute to eggrolls.

I temporarily lost one of my favorite oven mitts. Now I realize most people do not have favorite oven mitts, but I have an unusual fear of burning myself when I reach in the oven and I feel very protected with my favorite mitts. Thankfully, after about 15 minutes I found them again so it was only a minor glitch.

I turned the oven off while the last batch of pecan pie muffins were in it. As my husband says, I got a little too efficient.

Unusual occurances:
I ironed the tablecloth by my own initiative. To fully appreciate this, you have to understand that I am not the iron master in our home--Joe is. I really do not like to iron and never do it unless it is to iron Joe's clothes or he has strongly suggested that I iron the clothes that I have on. (This usually takes place before church.) But, he must be rubbing off on me, because yesterday I decided the tablecloth needed to be ironed before the party. About halfway through I was really questioning my judgment, but at that point I was fairly committed to the project--a half ironed tablecloth would have looked worse than one I hadn't ironed at all.

I cleaned the kitchen first. I usually always clean the kitchen last, but for some reason yesterday I shook it up a little, really reached out of my comfort zone and cleaned the kitchen first and the living room last. I am not sure that I will do that again--I started getting confused as to what still needed to be cleaned.

What was showing in the movie room (AKA kids' room):
The Santa Clause
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

What didn't get done before the party:
I didn't get a Christmas party playlist put together on my iPod, but as it turned out you couldn't hear the music over the crowd anyway. So I guess it wasn't that much of a big deal.

The Final Result
I think everyone had a great time and we didn't have any really major child meltdowns, so I call it a success.