My love of Christmas is exuberant and sloppy with excitement. Because of this, when the topic of a Christmas party came up in some email correspondence I replied with an avalanche of ideas, exclamation points and at least fifteen variations of the phrase “Oh, I LLOOOOOOVE Christmas!” A few days later I was put in charge of the Christmas party. This either means that they really liked my ideas or they were terrified of being steamrolled by the Sariah Santa Train.
Here’s a secret: I kind of love planning parties more than I enjoy attending them. I have a rare disease called wall-floweritis. Yes, it is true. I have a particularly vile strain that only acts up in groups of four or greater. It causes uncontrollable bursts of lame jokes, the inability to tell a funny story without laughing so hard in the middle that by the time I get to the end no one can understand a word I’ve said, and a very fetching deer-in-headlights stare. Thankfully I have grown out of the childhood strain, which consisted of nothing more than constant – gasping – giggles.
Every good party needs a theme. Having a theme gives me something to work around so that all of the components of the party – food, decorations, entertainment, invitations – flow together. We want this to be an elegant evening and, since it’s being held at a church, mistletoe-ignited make-out sessions and eggnog-fuelled congo lines should probably be avoided. I know this is an unlikely Christmas inspiration, but vanGogh’s famous painting is my current touch-point:
I’ve been playing around with the idea of “Starry, Starry Night.” My mother once gave a party with this theme and I remember how lovely the room was with loads of silver foil stars hanging from the ceiling. We have a group of kids anxious to enact the nativity scene for entertainment, and I think I can scrounge up three men to dress up like the wise men to hand out little gifts.
Now if we could just add some multi-coloured lights to that shrub and a blinking Rudolph on one of the roofs. . .
It’s eternal, the struggle between kitsch and chic. Right now I have Don McLean’s “Vincent,” “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,” and, inexplicably, “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” warring for airtime in my head. I’ll keep you posted on how the planning goes. If you see me dressed like a train conductor, trailing silver stars and wearing one of those reindeer headbands, speak in low tones and hand me dark chocolate.
