12.10.16 - 3rd Annual Hot Chocolate Potluck

Throughout the morning I alternated between playing with Clara and straightening up the apartment. During the week I had picked up odds and ends for the party, including a holly-themed table cloth, which I set up. I took the veggie tray I'd gotten at Wal Mart the night before and rearranged the veggies like a Christmas tree on a Santa platter I'd picked up at the Dollar Tree.

I changed Clara into her "Daddy's Little Elf" shirt and I changed into the Santa "Believe" shirt I'd also just picked up. I set out the nonfat and Vitamin D milk, Nestle hot chocolate packets, Bacardi, peppermint, and cinnamon. I put on a Christmas playlist. Incidentally it was chilly and raining the whole morning - great weather for hot chocolate.

Luckily Clara had woken up early enough that she was ready for a nap before anyone started arriving. It probably would've been much harder to get her down once guests were there because (I think) she doesn't want to miss anything. I put her down for a nap about 20 minutes before we were supposed to start and then spent a few moments enjoying my unusually clean apartment, anticipating the potluck food, and trying to look up ideas for Christmas magazine collages on Pinterest.

Erin arrived just on time at 1pm. She even joked about how always is the first to arrive because she always shows up at the actual time. But as the hostess, I really like that, because I'm ready to start and have been looking forward to it! She brought her "world famous" Rolo chocolate cookies and we ate several and went ahead and started warming some milk (even though whipped cream and marshmallows hadn't arrived yet).

Not too long after, Rachel showed up, and she was wearing a Christmas sweater that included flashing Christmas lights!! I was pretty impressed. She brought some cinnamon nutmeg muffins that smelled (and tasted) wonderful. She also brought high quality dark chocolate mix. The three of us visited for awhile before anyone else showed up (pretty much everyone was driving up from the bay area in stormy weather). It was pretty nice having a smaller group visit. Eventually Clara woke up and she was super cuddly with me while we kept visiting.

Next to arrive were Henry and Kale, and they came with Triscuits and cheese and oranges and vanilla extract. I was especially happy about the cheese. Clara hid behind my skirt from Henry, but she doesn't take long to warm up and he's very good with her, very attentive and sweet. Kale and I hadn't seen each other in an especially long time, and we caught up on how his degree was going, how mine was done, how Fitzy was doing. That was nice.

It wasn't long before we started talking about politics, a favorite topic of ours, and that conversation absorbed me completely for probably a couple hours actually. Somewhere in the course of it Gennilyn and Shannon arrived (with whipped cream and marshmallows, pizza rolls and potato chips).

Shannon does some of her Crossfit moves with Clara.

They ended up with Rachel and Erin around the coffee table making Christmas cards, but Kale and I talked on and on with Henry listening and occasionally smiling or giving a brief interjection. I so enjoy talking to both of those guys about politics, because they won't pretend to agree but it rarely gets at all heated, and it's easier to readily admit what you don't know when you're talking to others who are doing the same.

Throughout most of this Jack was in his room studying, although he did come out to visit for a little while. He then retired again to nap before a very late night study session.

Also, the entire time we were talking Henry was keeping an eye on Clara and at one point even stopped her from pulling a dining room chair on herself. He also videotaped her a few times, a fact for which I'm grateful since it was the only video taken the whole night. I had even told Erin and Rachel I wanted to do a better job videotaping this year, and then I completely forgot because I was talking politics with Kale. Ha. Oh well.

After a (very long) while, we snapped out of it and mingled more with everyone else. I felt a little bad for having been so myopic with only a couple guests, but Erin told me later she enjoyed quietly listening in on what we were saying, and that made me feel better. We talked a bit about my pregnancy, Gennilyn's Harry Potter themed Howler cards, Shannon's Crossfit competition and upcoming qualifying exam for her PhD program, and Clara's dancing abilities. Erin, Rachel, and Gennilyn all made some pretty nice Christmas cards.

Gennilyn makes Howlers.

During all of this, Clara's approximately 2 hour Christmas youtube playlist was playing on repeat, setting a decent ambiance I guess. It's filled with videos like this:

We also took a few group photos using the timer on my phone, and I'm glad we went through the effort.

Then Rachel, Erin, and Gennilyn headed out. Shannon stayed and chatted with the rest of us about her PhD committee and what the defense would be like. Once she headed out, though, Kale and I (with, again, a listening Henry) had a particularly good conversation about abortion. The bottom line is he can understand what I'm saying and follow my thought process even if he doesn't agree with me, and that is so satisfying and refreshing. It makes me much more interested in discussing it than I normally would be. I so enjoyed the talk. He also told me that his conversations with me over the years have convinced him the topic is more complex than most people make it out to be, and I found that very encouraging and even flattering.

By the time Kale and Henry left they had been at my apartment for nearly 7 hours, and it flew by. After everyone was gone, Clara watched videos while I posted the pics on Facebook and ate allll the pizza rolls Gennilyn had left with us. And after I finally put Clara to bed, I enjoyed one last cup of hot chocolate (this time with whipped cream and marshmallows!) in the darkened living room with only our Christmas lights on. That was pretty nice.