Merry Christmas, Small Group!
Last night there was a Christmas party at Matt's house. (Matt is one of the people in our small group. It was our small group Christmas party.) Since it was a potluck, we had to bring some food, but I am useless in the kitchen (I can make potstickers, sometimes, but they didn't really match the Italian dinner everyone planned) and Seanie isn't much better, so we volunteered Jeannie to make dessert.
Because that's what friends are for, right?
So Jeannie came over to my house armed with a mixer, a zester, and recipes. She quickly discovered that my fammily owns three mixers, a fact of which I was previously unaware. I had been assigned to purchase ingredients, so Jeannie also deduced that I had bought waaaaaay too many limes (I didn't know whether it was better to have greener limes, or yellowish limes, so I bought a variety to cover my bases) and an extra can of condensed milk, proving that I am terrible at following directions. Well, this is why she gets to cook.
Jeannie and some crazy mixing action. She made two pies, a Key Lime pie and a Pomegranate White Chocolate pie. They were both delicious and awesome.
I helped.
Seanie came home while we were working on the pies, and he was supposed to melt some white chocolate chips for Jeannie, but he burned them. Oops. Turns out you can't microwave chocolate chips in a glass bowl for five minutes. Who knew? He ended up melting a second batch on the stove instead.
--
As I've mentioned in past posts, we were doing a White Elephant/Yankee Swap gift exchange at the party, but that was at the end of the evening. First, we crowded around Matt's small table (a dozen of us ended up coming to the party) and had lasagna and salad and garlic bread. Very yummy.
Matt's house is very nice. It does not look like your stereotypical bachelor pad. Very tasteful and nice, even if there is a big gun hanging over the fireplace. Plus it's huge, and he lives there by himself. He had tons of candles scattered everywhere, a fire roaring, and a lovely Christmas tree in one corner. It's not quite what I would expect from him, because he's always so casual in t-shirts and jeans.
Trying to get everyone organized for a nice group photo.
It's always a pain setting the camera to automatically take pictures.
From left to right: Seanie, me, Jeannie, Diane, Trisha (seated), Aaron, Dina, Ben, Christy, Carlos, Jezer and Matt.
Aaaaaw, everyone looks so cute.
After dinner we played a game of Cranium. Jeannie, Seanie, me and Jezer formed one team. Christy, Carlos, Ben and Diane were another. Dina, Aaron, Matt and Trisha were the last group. Our team pulled an early lead and won quite handily. We got lucky - we had LOTS of drawing questions, and Jeannie's an expert at deciphering my doodles. So even though Seanie was practically sleeping through the second half of the game, we triumphed.
Side note - I was very disappointed to learn neither Jezer or Jeannie could not hum "Smells like Teen Spirit". Clearly, some people need a little more grunge in their lives. Thank goodness Seanie woke up long enough to correctly identify my "Daa nuh nuh nuh DAH NUH NUH NUH" because otherwise, we were HOSED.
Matt, Aaron, Trisha, and Dina puzzling over a word puzzle.
Seanie and I had brought Christmas crackers for everyone, so we spent a few minutes popping them before dessert. Apparently no one knows anything about crackers in America; I had to explain over and over about paper crowns, the riddles and the prizes inside. Well, that's OK. It was fun to see what random toys everyone got. (I got a plastic shoehorn...lame. But Jeannie got a tangrams set, and Diane got a tiny pack of cards!) The best part, of course, was forcing everyone to wear embarrassing paper crowns:
Diane.
Jeans & me.
Everybody!
By the time we got around to opening the gifts, I think everyone was too tired to get into the spirit of stealing. I think almost everyone ended up with whatever they originally opened. Jeannie took home a mug from Anthropologie (nice!), Seanie a card game version of Pictionary and Scrabble, and I got a desk calendar of 365 stupid quotes. But there were no wars waged over anything, which is too bad...that's always fun.
Because that's what friends are for, right?
So Jeannie came over to my house armed with a mixer, a zester, and recipes. She quickly discovered that my fammily owns three mixers, a fact of which I was previously unaware. I had been assigned to purchase ingredients, so Jeannie also deduced that I had bought waaaaaay too many limes (I didn't know whether it was better to have greener limes, or yellowish limes, so I bought a variety to cover my bases) and an extra can of condensed milk, proving that I am terrible at following directions. Well, this is why she gets to cook.
Jeannie and some crazy mixing action. She made two pies, a Key Lime pie and a Pomegranate White Chocolate pie. They were both delicious and awesome.
I helped.
Seanie came home while we were working on the pies, and he was supposed to melt some white chocolate chips for Jeannie, but he burned them. Oops. Turns out you can't microwave chocolate chips in a glass bowl for five minutes. Who knew? He ended up melting a second batch on the stove instead.
--
As I've mentioned in past posts, we were doing a White Elephant/Yankee Swap gift exchange at the party, but that was at the end of the evening. First, we crowded around Matt's small table (a dozen of us ended up coming to the party) and had lasagna and salad and garlic bread. Very yummy.
Matt's house is very nice. It does not look like your stereotypical bachelor pad. Very tasteful and nice, even if there is a big gun hanging over the fireplace. Plus it's huge, and he lives there by himself. He had tons of candles scattered everywhere, a fire roaring, and a lovely Christmas tree in one corner. It's not quite what I would expect from him, because he's always so casual in t-shirts and jeans.
Trying to get everyone organized for a nice group photo.
It's always a pain setting the camera to automatically take pictures.
From left to right: Seanie, me, Jeannie, Diane, Trisha (seated), Aaron, Dina, Ben, Christy, Carlos, Jezer and Matt.
Aaaaaw, everyone looks so cute.
After dinner we played a game of Cranium. Jeannie, Seanie, me and Jezer formed one team. Christy, Carlos, Ben and Diane were another. Dina, Aaron, Matt and Trisha were the last group. Our team pulled an early lead and won quite handily. We got lucky - we had LOTS of drawing questions, and Jeannie's an expert at deciphering my doodles. So even though Seanie was practically sleeping through the second half of the game, we triumphed.
Side note - I was very disappointed to learn neither Jezer or Jeannie could not hum "Smells like Teen Spirit". Clearly, some people need a little more grunge in their lives. Thank goodness Seanie woke up long enough to correctly identify my "Daa nuh nuh nuh DAH NUH NUH NUH" because otherwise, we were HOSED.
Matt, Aaron, Trisha, and Dina puzzling over a word puzzle.
Seanie and I had brought Christmas crackers for everyone, so we spent a few minutes popping them before dessert. Apparently no one knows anything about crackers in America; I had to explain over and over about paper crowns, the riddles and the prizes inside. Well, that's OK. It was fun to see what random toys everyone got. (I got a plastic shoehorn...lame. But Jeannie got a tangrams set, and Diane got a tiny pack of cards!) The best part, of course, was forcing everyone to wear embarrassing paper crowns:
Diane.
Jeans & me.
Everybody!
By the time we got around to opening the gifts, I think everyone was too tired to get into the spirit of stealing. I think almost everyone ended up with whatever they originally opened. Jeannie took home a mug from Anthropologie (nice!), Seanie a card game version of Pictionary and Scrabble, and I got a desk calendar of 365 stupid quotes. But there were no wars waged over anything, which is too bad...that's always fun.