Xmas Party Planning ideas for dummies

              Christmas decorating and Party Planning ideas for Dummies

Instant decorations

The HR (Human Relations) dept. for the company I work for is always trying to find ways to be relevant to the employees.  This week someone from HR sent out an email reminding us all the typical cautions to take when decorating for the holidays.  This is the same list of dangers that we’ve known about since the days when we could still leave milk and cookies for Santa and he could smoke his pipe indoors. This list included tired old worries, like “don’t use frayed or damaged electrical power cords, don’t let your Christmas tree dry out, don’t use gasoline to clean the brick around your fireplace….blah, blah, blah.  Nothing but don’t, don’t, don’t. 

It seemed to me that we should be telling each other what we CAN do, instead of what NOT to do.  So I was inspired to create a list of decorating and party planning ideas that we CAN do, if we are dummies.  And, isn’t it really more fun to be a dummy than to be a boring, safe person?  Here is my list.  I welcome your additions. 

·       Putting up the outside Christmas decorations is always more fun and exciting after the Rum Punch is served.   The traditional Rum Punch recipe calls for one part rum for every part of punch.  The amount of rum punch you need depends on the thirst of the decorators, so have plenty available.  Don’t bother to tell the decorators that there is rum in the punch.  Just say this is Grandma’s special recipe.

·       Now that your decorators are well lubricated, it is time to put up the outdoor lighting and decorations.  For this you will need several ladders and plenty of extension cords.  It is part of the joy of Christmas to watch people dangle from the roof after their ladders have collapsed.  Don’t worry if the electrical cord is not rated for outdoor use.  Modern electrical breakers will probably trip if there is a circuit overload or a ground fault occurs.  Make sure your fire insurance policy is up to date.

·       Paper Origami candle holders in the shape of angels are a lightweight method to add candles to the branches of your Christmas tree.  Light them all at midnight to help Santa and the volunteer fire dept. locate your house.

·       Create an instant winter wonderland by scattering bags of asbestos powder all over the house and yard.  Don’t worry about the costs. This stuff is really cheap now that there is no legal way to use it like in the good old days.

·       Road flares lining your driveway will add a festive look to your landscape.  An added benefit is that when the party is over your guests will be able to see better as they to back out of your driveway, regardless of how intoxicated they are.

·       Use yards and yards of colored tissue paper around your fireplace to add a festive look near the flames.

·       Another decorating tip is to use depleted uranium powder from obsolete military ammo to flock your Xmas tree.  When you turn off the lights, the tree will continue to glow for 10,000 years. 

·       During your holiday party make sure to schedule time to play fun traditional games, like “Running with Scissors relay races”, “Bobbing for Cracklins”, or the ever popular “Toss the Elf” game.  But please, no wagering.

·       A wonderful way to add unique lighting to your holiday dinner table is to put several strings of lights in a fishbowl, fill it with water and plug them in.  Fish are optional.  If you do add the fish, you might as well have some tartar sauce on hand too.

·       For an extra-ordinary visual effect, go out into the woods and catch eight tiny wild reindeer.  Tie them together on the roof along with a sleigh and Uncle Bob, dressed in his Santa costume.  If the weather turns chilly you can throw Uncle Bob a blanket and a bottle of Grandma’s Rum Punch.

·       Holiday traditions are important.  One traditional drink is Egg Nog.  A simple recipe is to blend eggnog 50/50 with moonshine. This will help to create a festive party mood for you and your guests.   If your mother in law is also a guest you might want to eliminate the egg nog half for your own beverage and go with straight moonshine.  Then join Uncle Bob on the roof.

                                                  HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Don't eat the casserole

   Don't eat the casserole

You are probably asking yourself, “Where has he been?  Why has it been so long between Intrepid Traveler reports?”.   Well, thank you for your concern. If you were not concerned, I think you should be ashamed of yourself.  If you really were concerned, I think you need to get a hobby.

Here is the short answer to why no new reports from the edge of normal:   I have not been out of the USA since my China trip, and I have been too busy doing very uninteresting things, so there was nothing to write about.  But the worst thing that kept any new Intrepid Traveler reports from hitting the “E-Waves” was the fact that I had my laptop stolen from my vehicle.  The laptop that had all my past stories in it . The laptop that has accompanied me to most of the 30+ nations that I have been to.  I had thousands of photos on that hard drive and hundreds of irreplaceable files on it.  I also had a brand new, excellently written, fabulously witty story on it that I was ready to publish.  That story was about the odd foods that I have eaten or been offered during my years of travel overseas.  The title of the piece was “Bad food for thought”.    But it is lost forever since I did not have it saved in any other location.   Oh well.  I hope the thieves enjoyed reading it.

Speaking of food…..

I was watching professional football this evening when hunger forced me to stop and find food.  Since I am a man and am at the top of the evolutionary food chain, I knew that I had the skills and intelligence to hunt and gather food from the refrigerator.  Using my well-honed survival instincts I found some leftover ham from last week  and some green bean casserole.  The casserole was in a Tupperware container, and, being a man, as mentioned before, I will eat pretty much anything that is found in Tupperware, regardless of how old it is. 

I scooped up a large portion of the green bean casserole to accompany my ham, heated it up and scarfed it down.  I resumed watching football.

An hour or so later, I started to feel very bloated, like I had eaten way more than I should have.  I felt extremely lethargic, my joints began to hurt and I was achy.  But since I pretty much feel like this all the time, I really didn’t think much of it.  I decided to go to bed early since I had a busy work week ahead of me.  I layed in bed and tried to read a book, but could not concentrate on it.   I finally decided that there really was something wrong with my stomach.  The longer I lay there the more I could feel my guts knot up.  I could feel it begin to bubble.  This was not good.

I got out of bed, and called to my wife that I was sick and warned her not to eat the casserole.  (I am always in a protective mode for the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler) I told her I was going to throw up.  She said she thought I said I was going to go out.  I walked in to the bathroom and calmly puked in the toilet.  Several times.  If any of you have ever drunk too much alcohol and gotten commode hugging drunk, as they say, you will appreciate the difference between vomiting when you are sober and when you are drunk.  Since I was sober, I found it much easier to coordinate the opening of my mouth at the proper moment for the vomit to spew out of it.  When drunk, (So I have been told) it is not always easy to coordinate the mouth in time, forcing some of the vomit to come out the nose.  Vomit being forced out of your nose is BY FAR the worst thing about puking.  The smell of it, the taste of it, and the chunks of it are now plugging up what is supposed to be your air intake system.  So, even if you are drunk you are assaulted by the remains of the vomit in your sinuses, and that is just plain gross.  But I digress.

Since I was not drunk, this puking session did not have any of that unpleasantness. I just vomited a few times and then felt much better.  I washed up and told my wife I was going back to bed.  She said she was going to sleep in the guest bedroom because she did not want to have me puke on her.  We have a modest sized bedroom and she sleeps on the side of the bed between my side and the bathroom.  I suppose she thought I would be too lazy to get out of bed and just do some projectile vomiting over her and have it land, artfully, into the toilet.    I told her I was done puking but she did not want to take any chances.

I was lying in bed, making sure my guts had stopped bubbling, and started to formulate this story in my head.  So, I grabbed my new laptop and began to write this story down.  It sounded a lot more interesting in my head than it is on paper.  I guess you will now, after reading this, be asking yourself: “when will he go away again?”