Here comes my explanation for the lengthy delay between finals week and this post. The culprit? Obsessive party-planning. Never have I ever been so consumed with the details of decorations (everything was handmade) and the urgency of finding something as banal as plastic plates. It was my (very delayed) housewarming, dubbed the “Harken Back Christmas.” It was themed to the 1940’s.
Although it was a really good night, all in all I learned that a party should not be an ordeal. Very few people off my confirmed list actually showed. Lots and lots of work for a slightly less insane return (at least, far less than I’d imagined).
The decorations are staying up until New Years. Maybe then I’ll have someone over to help me finish off the handle of rum I’ve got stowed away in my refrigerator. And that’ll be a party in itself.
All joking aside, the mammoth undertaking of the night and subsequent disappointment of the minimal turnout turned out to be a worthwhile exercise in combatting my tendency towards black and white thinking. I was very quick to dismiss the night as a total failure since it didn’t amount to the Martha Stewart-esque vision I’d constructed while logging hours hand-fluffing tissue paper hanging decorations. But was it honestly a failure? As you can see by my grinning self in this documentation, obviously not.
I wore a great dress, got a little tipsy off some delicious drinks, shared some of my favorite jazz with my friends, and hopefully was the hostess with the mostest. Even if I wasn’t, I came out of the whole thing with a great White Elephant gift: a mustachioed hip flask (picture to come).
The ultimate lesson? Never trust social networking or college students as variables in planning an “adult party.” Also - no one wants to cater to my own bizarre obsession with the war era. And I should never, ever devote hours to making decorations for any event other than my wedding. And even then, I’ll probably enlist a horde of bridesmaids.
Apologies for the extended lamentations. But you get the idea, yeah?
