Christmas Parties

Christmas parties make me nervous. They are inevitably held at some stranger's home where toilets break and there are inside jokes from 30 years ago that no one gets anymore. There are cats that I'm allergic to and dogs that I'm allergic to sleeping on my coat in the guest bedroom, and those delicious looking cookies are full of nuts that I can't eat. Someone is drunk, and no one is cutting him off, and then there are gift exchanges for people you don't know who don't want to know you...not how I want to celebrate the incarnation.


So, I host Christmas parties when possible. In part because I love to host things, and also in part because because I have created for myself an allergy free bubble of a home in which I am perfectly comfortable. So, I hosted the Good Works Christmas party yesterday morning. I love the Good Works Christmas party. We draw names and exchange words of encouragement with one another. And my coworkers are for the most part, incredible cooks. For example, I ate cheese grits yesterday and breakfast casserole that was full of crab meat. The Christmas party is 3 of my favorite hours of the year.

I like drawing names and writing words of encouragement. I like it SO MUCH. We did this last year, too, and an older (maybe 75) woman that I work with complained. There are only 15 or 16 staff members, but she wanted to do something else because she didn't want to get someone she didn't know. Someone she didn't know?? I insisted. "Then that's a great reason to get to know them! How do you not know people you see for at least 2 hours every week?" I was especially fired up because we work for a ministry of hospitality.

So, last years Christmas party rolls around, and my 75 year-old coworkers has drawn my name. She wrote me some encouraging things and I thought, "Oh good, I'm glad she got someone she knows."

Pre Christmas party this year, she says to me, clearly having no recollection of last year, "I'm glad I got someone I know this year. Last year I got someone I didn't know at all, but I'm glad that didn't happen this year."

Wow.

I wasn't offended, just surprised and entertained.

Merry Christmas Party.