Wednesday, December 19, 2007

christmas parties...

I love entertaining. I don't necessarily mean in the Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire kind of way. I mean, I love having friends and folk over to our home and spending time with them.

After Amy and I wed last year, we attempted to have friends over for a get-together or "party", as some call them, around once a month. We started off well. The Halloween party last October was fun...Freddy Krueger even came by. The Thanksgiving party rolled around and the Christmas party was a blast. For New Years, we had more people than the Fire Marshall would allow in our small 750 sq. foot home. We continued with smaller groups until this summer when Amy began working 50 hours a week. We both became extremely busy and really coveted our time together. Parties and events were put on hiatus (much like most television programming with the Writer's Strike).

When Amy began her new job, one of the definite benefits was that she would not be working more than 40 hours, normally, with no weekends. Our fun gatherings were back on. Wooh!

I wanted to host a Christmas party, but as we began looking at the Christmas holiday and really thinking about it, I did not want to have a ton of people over to eat and just play stupid games (which I'm not opposed to on a very regular basis). I wanted friends to come, relax and fellowship over a meal. I wanted this Christmas "gathering" to be a gift to them. I guess I didn't want it to even be a party.

We decided to have a Simple Christmas Dinner for a small amount of friends (no more than 9) on a week night so people could have one relaxing evening in the midst of the crazy season. We also wanted it to be smaller so we would not go crazy in this uber-busy season. We wanted it to be an enjoyable meal where we could have fun with each other and encourage each other in life. Basically, we wanted it to be a blessing to those who came.

Last night, seven friends joined us for dinner at our house. We ate, talked about our favorite Christmas memories and movies, church, God, politics, Family Guy, and even who is more of a man: Hillary Clinton or Joyce Meyer. There were no cheesy party games; there was just conversation between people; between friends and spiritual family. There was no singing of Christmas carols, although the Imperial March from Star Wars constantly played as Terry is a very popular guy and kept receiving phone calls. I think conversation and quality time with people is lost in our culture. Friends come over and the television is on the entire time either with programming or video games.

All in all, it was a very intimate and enjoyable Christmas gathering. There was much food, much laughter and much fun-enjoyment-encouragement. I pray that our friends who blessed us with their presence enjoyed themselves and were blessed by each other. I hope that the evening and the fellowship will help them catch a glimpse of Christ this Christmas.

I really didn't mean for this post to sound so...mushy.

--mike

4 comments:

Heather said...

I'm a big fan of dinners with friends. We have two sets of friends that we regularly get together for dinner, and those evenings are some of my favorites.

Bolo said...

Your mushy account reminds me of dinner at Olive Garden one evening several years back.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Michael said...

It has, man. We should get together or something.

Bolo said...

Yes, we should. At the very least, I'll be able to ruin your life...

...and you'll love me for it ;)