And so it begins......

....... preparations for a party. The invitations for our Halloween Charades party went out today. I think this is either the fifth or sixth year in a row that we're doing a Halloween party. I'll have to check the notebook on that. I keep notebooks on everything....... I have a book to keep track of the parties--- the invitation, who came, what was served, what we gave as favors, the games we played.... all the details, to avoid doing the same thing year after year.

I checked my pantry cabinets this afternoon and was surprised to find a lot of brand new Halloween items that I had bought after last Halloween when the Hallmark store had their 75%-off sale. I've got everything I need for the favor bags, and for the guessing-game gifts.... all I need is to just buy some chocolates to put into everyone's party bags. I've already filled up a little jar with pumpkin seeds, and counted every last one of them. Thankfully, I used a teeny jar, but still, it held more seeds than I thought. Then I took a plastic favor bag and filled it with chocolate pumpkins..... thought I'd do that this year instead of counting out the little candy-corns. Everyone groans when they have to guess the numbers, but then when we're looking through their guesses to see who came the closest, everyone is just sitting on the edges of their seats to see if they won. Such simple little party games, and everyone just has such a good time with them.

When I was reading the newspaper one day this week, my eye caught the "Dear Abby" column, which I don't often read. This one had a headline about party-givers, though, so I read it through. Someone wrote in to ask why they were the only couple in their group of friends who tended to give the parties. They wanted to know what they could do so they'd be guests instead of always the hosts. In short, Abby told them to get over it. She said that some people just plain like to give parties, they have the time to do it, and they're good at it. Abby also said that most people don't like to host parties because they're too stressful, they're too much work, and they just don't have the time. Abby's suggestion was to just trim down their guest list, and invite only the people who truly enjoy the parties, and whose company they enjoy.

I guess my fate is sealed. I'm doomed to be the hostess, rather than the guest. We already know that most of our friends don't like to host parties, and before we moved here, the neighbors rarely got together as a large group. It also seems that with each party that we've given, the guest list has gotten longer, the parties have been more creative, the favor-bags more interesting. No one walks out of our parties without big smiles on their faces, and we can see them peeking into their gifts bags as they walk down towards their cars. What did you get? Don't touch my bag.... show me what you got first!