Christmas Party Day + One...

Last night was our annual Christmas party.... and today is a slow-motion day. Tables and chairs have to get back into their places, carpets have to be vacuumed, grab-bag gifts that weren't chosen get put away for next year's party.  All of that is done now, and then some.  What takes four weeks' worth of planning and arranging takes just a day to re-arrange into a sense of normalcy. If you walked into my house right now, you wouldn't know we had 20 people here last night. And when I think of the parties back in Clear Lake when we had double that amount, I wonder how I did it all.

As always, the grab-bag gifts were a hit. I've learned that the best choices for the men's gifts have to do with food, tools, or sports.  The ladies like anything Christmas-y or sparkly, which means they're easier to shop for. I will have to get creative next December and put together more gift-bags for the men filled with snacks, treats, anything food-related. For now, the food gifts that didn't get chosen last night are in my pantry and my husband can snack on them when he's watching ballgames on television.

Our cold weather is history, with today's temperatures in the 70s... so much nicer than the 40-degree weather we had just before the party. We lucked out last week and didn't get a hard freeze, and I have to say that I don't miss all that snow and sleet that's up in the northeast.

The night before our party, there were two cats on our porch.... they seemed to be a mother cat and her 6- or 7-month-old kitten.  The younger one followed the adult cat all over the yard, and even though they were both trusting and friendly, it was the little one who purred by my feet and let me pick him up and hold him. And there I was, thinking of Christmas-y names for that little gray cat.... Jingles, Holly, Elf-Kitty, Santa-Cat..... and I really considered taking him into the house and seeing if he/she and Sweet Pea would get along.  But how do you take a young kitten away from its mother.... and I didn't want to take both of them.  So I fed them on the porch, and thought for sure they would be waiting for breakfast yesterday morning.  But not a sign of them... and they weren't out there yesterday afternoon or last night either.  I actually walked out on the back porch three times during the party to call "Kitty-Kitty-Kitty" -- to which they had both come running the night before.

I constantly say 'No more cats... no more pets....'  but somehow just the sight of a homeless cat outside makes me start thinking up names. As my husband says... we never have to go and look for cats... somehow they just always find us.

So... another Christmas party come and gone. My husband's birthday is coming up this week, and then Christmas Eve and Day follows shortly thereafter. Another Christmas... another year.... each one going by too quickly.