Christmas Parties

Saturday was a tale of two Christmas Parties. I'm going to tell you about the second one first: Lee's Work Christmas Party.

We went with his boss and his wife, left Ray over at their house with a babysitter, Taylor, who is the boss's son's wife's sister's child. I think. Good kid. She and Ray played and played and played and played. Meanwhile...we went to the Skysox Stadium. Good food...but not worth the tickets. Isn't work supposed to pay for the majority of the cost? We had fun talking to Bob and his wife, but...Lee's coworker Ed, who reminds me of Ignatius J Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, which yours truly is in the middle of reading at work, anyway, Ed went to the party, with his wife, bringing along Rob, another coworker, calling us several times on the way over (we went with Bob), and, after we'd arrived, said he, his wife, and Rob were going out for a smoke break, from which they never returned. I haven't heard the story yet; it may be interesting, but it's probably just "Eh, screw it." We had to sing the twelve days of Christmas: "On the first day of Christmas, [company name here] gave to me [something that fit the tu-u-u-une]." Our table was Day 2. Computer geeks, not so much on the party games. We ate well but not memorably, left early, and hung out at Bob's house for a while, until Ray hit too-tired-to-slow-down mode.

The first party was the kids' party for my company. Crafts, finger food, presents, and a little kid named Hunter, age 2 1/2 or so. Fun. He started in on painting aflowerpot yellow at one point, had just started, when his mother said, "Stop!" The kid froze, and his mother stripped off his shirt. Within minutes, he was warpaint from one wrist to the other. Just as he was about to wipe his hands on his pants--"Stop!"--he froze again. She stripped him down to his diaper, and soon enough it was both legs, too. And how he cried when she dumped him in the sink! Waaaaaaaaaaaah! And he was scared of Santa, too. At one point, his mom had tricked him into sitting next to Mrs. Claus, by putting another little boy he was playing with between the two of them, for a big group photo (Ray, of course, raced up to Santa's lap before anyone else could get there). I forget what she was doing, but Mrs. Claus accidentally bonked Hunter on the head with a toy, and he looked at his mom like, "Did you see that? Did you see that? Evil, I tell you!" I skipped the adult party for work. Ray came home with a flowerpot, a snowflake necklace (which she wrapped up in a paper she'd colored with the babysitter so the babysitter would have a present), a gingerbread man, a placemat, and a frog game. And I had a good time, too.

Dang old adults.