So we officially have one more week to go before our annual White Elephant party. For our cookie takeaway we have 9 of 10 cookies made – I’ll be making the last one today. I just can’t decide what to make, which is why I’m waiting to the last minute to bake something.
As for our food menu, we’re still making changes. Denis has opted not to make his fried mushrooms, so he’s on the hunt for a new recipe. I’ve opted not to make shrimp cerviche, so I’m trying to find something to replace that. This will be a week of prep – which means making the huge grocery list for the items we need to make the dishes we’ve selected. And then figuring out the timing to prep each dish so that it’s at it’s optimum for Saturday night.
We’ve decorated the whole house on the inside as well as outside of the house. We have a new lawn ornament (last year we added a lighted White Elephant and this year we added penguins in a blimp – I KNOW! We’re becoming the Griswalds!). One thing I also wanted to do this year was put colored lights on our big holly tree on the corner of our house. Last year at the post-Christmas sales I picked up 6-7 boxes of colored lights specifically for that big tree. I had forgotten about the lights but discovered them when I was taking things out of our Christmas closet for the decorating frenzy. So this year in addition to adding the penguins, we’ll be adding the colored lights on the holly tree.
As always, we’re both taking Friday off as vacation day for various reasons. We have a housecleaner coming that morning to clean the entire main floor of the house. I need to double check on what day my friend KJ is arriving so that I can make sure her bedroom and bathroom are fresh and ready for her as well. We also have a repair guy coming on Wednesday because the igniter on our gas stove is broken. He came last week and diagnosed the problem, and ordered the parts. The goal is for it to be fixed on Wednesday.
At last count we have 30 guests planning on coming, and another 10 that might come. The general rule that we’ve experienced is that 25% don’t actually come, so if that’s true then we’ll still end up with about 30 people total if the 10 are considered actual attendees.
It’s a busy week – we also have Cub Scouts for CB as well as CG’s final tutoring session. But we always manage to get everything done, so I’m not concerned about the hectic schedule on top of party prep. But I’m happy that it’s finally The Week! I can’t wait!