The (other)Family Christmas Party

The (other)Family consists or Dave and Step, Jes and Cory, Me and Casey, Tracy, Derek, Nick, and John. When stateside, it also includes Lauren and MP. Last night it also included my sister and her boyfriend. I am mostly posting this for Lauren and MP's sake.
The party was set to start at 7 pm, but for some reason almost everyone was there early. Dave and Steph, and Cory were all there at 6. I think John was the last to get there, and it wouldn't have been later than 7:20. We had a little problem with the music. I had planned on streaming NPR's Jingle Jams , but they were having technical difficulties. Casey got Pandora set up for me so I could still enjoy holiday music. I sang all night - I'm not sure how everyone else
While we waited for everyone to show up, Jes and I started decorating our cookies. We had a cookie decorating contest going with two categories. The first one was a self portrait gingerbread girl or boy. Jessica wound up winning that one, because we had a very tiny gingerbread girl cookie for her to use as part of her design. Her prize was a Deluxe Jesus Action figure. After all, he is the reason for the season. Turns out I suck at decorating cookies, because mine wound up looking like a blow-up doll in a frilly dress. Casey did really well, and he came in second. His cookie was wearing his Turkish flag shirt. It took a lot of skill to finish the outfit! The second category was a free design. People got to choose from a stocking, tree, star or ornament. Tracy one that category for turning a stocking into Snoopy. It was pretty amazing. Casey came in second here, too, for his alligator design, which encouraged Tracy to look at the cookies a little bit differently. She one a $10.00 gift card to Whataburger.
Between the decorating a judging we had dinner. We had a bit of a buffet going with fried, BBQ and Caribbean chicken; mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, french onion casserole, salad with cranberries and almonds, wheat rolls, and for dessert Irish cream cake, or this sugar-cookie-pie-filling-almond amazing thing that Dave and Steph brought. To drink there was root beer, coke, hot apple cider (with rum if you wanted) Lone Star and Shiner Cheer.
After dinner we opened presents. We had each drawn one name to save on the trouble of gift giving. The arrangement:
The Boys
John drew Casey
Casey drew Dave
Dave drew John
Cory drew Derek
Derek drew Nick
Nick drew Cory

The Girls
Stephany drew Jessica
Jessica drew Stephany
The Q drew Tracy
Tracy drew The Q

I wish I could remember what everyone got, but I can't. I do know that the highlights of gift opening were that Cory's gift was double wrapped - once with paper, and once with duct tape, and both Dave and Cory got NERF guns, and after opening gifts the boys went outside to play. There should be some pretty awesome pictures from that later.
Of course there was a fire. John gave Casey a little fire place tool kit with stand (you know, a brush, tongs, a poker, etc) so Casey could really manipulate the flames. Things settled down around 11, and everyone went home.
We will definitely do this again next year, and when we do, we fully expect the presence of MP and Lauren, and Keiran will have joined us by then (Jes and Cory's little one, due in January)! It will be one hell of a party.