The Bazail Party

I'm lucky because I understand a language called Trishish.  I'm even fluent in the text for of Trishish communication.  I think there are only 3 or 4 people in the world who are fluent in Trishish.  Without my conversant Trishish, I never would have been able to collaborate with my Aunt Tricia to plan the Bazail Christmas party.  Even with all the planning and coordinating, however, I failed to get a good picture of Tricia and Jim, which is a huge bummer because they were responsible for making the party happen.

I am seriously energy-deficient this holiday season.  I barely tidied up the house for this party, and I found out it doesn't matter one bit.  We still had a great time!  It helps to have enough experience in ham-and-funeral-potato-heavy gatherings to be able to set a table and pull together a presentable party in an hour.  It also helps when the guest bring almost all of the food!

In case you aren't conversant in Trishish, what that text said was that I was going to do the funeral potatoes and Tricia and Jim were bringing the ham and paying for everything else.  Oh my gosh, I have the best party guests ever!  Even though they all made me use the electric knife on the ham.

I look all Zen-like in this picture.  What you don't know is that I was barking out orders:  "Everyone grab a plate and put food on it!  Tziporah, get down!  Ruby, grab her!  Mom, get out the cups!  Where are Josh and Emily?!  Golda, get my phone from under the microwave and take a picture of me cutting this ham!"  And this was right after I said the prayer in a very calm voice.  Scott called on me because "I like to be in charge."  whatever.  :)  And Josh and Emily and Rolayne had a bad cold.  We were so sad!

Tizzy looks a little disoriented after two hours in nursery and Coke and chocolate for dinner.

 Tizzy wanted to be in charge.  Scott thought i would be a great idea for the kids to decorate gingerbread houses.  It wasn't.  Free and Alex had a huge standoff about whether to use the glue gun or not.  And parents had to help, which is the kiss of death for any party.  In the end, we were left with four heaps of failed walls and lots of kids who, let's face it, had fun anyway.  So it wasn't all bad.  Sarah had a very successful design business in Miami, and even she wasn't able to make walls stay up.  Maybe if it was a mere HOUSE, as opposed to a MANOR.  We decided there is no correlation between icing and real life.  Not even Trajan's hours of architecture drawings he did as a kid could compare him for a poorly designed gingerbread house that was on clearance at Sam's Club.  It was the dormers that killed us, just for the record.

 Lincoln

 We had the obligatory music time:  Cello stuff from Ari, Ukranian Carol on the guitar and Still, Still, Still from Golda and Circe, and then...

 Present time!  Ptolemy and Tziporah LOVED their toothbrush sets!  Freestone scored big-time with a $50 gift card to Amazon.  Sarah claims that nobody told her it as a $10 limit on cousin gifts.  Sarah, uh, we owe you a lot of money.  Freestone immedaitely went shopping after the party, putting stuff in his cart for Ari, who for some reason didn't get a gift, and Jake, his cousin for the other side of the family gift exchange.  Best Christmas EVER!!

 I love how Tziporah is already brushing her teeth!

 Golda was o the phone with the Stake Patriarch during the Cousin Picture.  Seriously, this kid cannot relax.  On the bright side, her Patriarchal Blessing is scheduled!

Darnit, I wish nobody had to leave the party, but I think Roland and Sarah had hit their nutty kid quota for the night and were ready for some peace and quiet!  I don't think their boys agreed, but you can only hang out with cousins for so long before you have to get back to reality.  Sarh and Roland, I think you should be here every year for Christmas.  After all, you don't REALLY have Christmas in Miami, do you, with all that balmy weather and no snow??