Our bodacious Christmas party

We are done with the bulk of our travels and will be here for the holidays so we decided to have a big holiday party. With all the other parties going on, travels, and family arriving, we didn't know what to expect for people attending. In rough numbers, we invited 50 and 45 came, and some of those missing were out of town. Awesome!  It's great to have that many friends gathered together.

Julie is a great chef and normally does a huge amount of work for our gatherings, but serious food and beverage for 45 people was out of the question. She found a local catering company, Ellie's. This turned out to be an incredible choice. The food was outstanding and the service was friendly and close to perfect. For anyone in Park City looking for catering, you can't go wrong with her company, which you can find on the web here.  It is a wonderful thing to get done with a long night of partying and discover that your kitchen is clean and put away!

One of the most intriguing laws of physics, much like Newton's laws of attraction, is that everyone will always end up gathered in and around the kitchen.  We have a large house. Right next to the kitchen are a big living room and dining room.  Downstairs there is a huge family room with a pool table and a bar.  Where did all 40+ people gather?  Within about 15 feet of the poor catering people, who were trying to keep food going.

Alison, Arnie and Manette are standing within three feet of the caterers' work space.

Christmas head gear was in style.  Here we have Frank, Julie and JW.  Julie is sporting a Christmas tree hat given to her by Alison. Frank and JW were University of Maryland college buddies of our home builder, Rob Schumacher. It is amazing that they have all settled in Park City.

We kept trying to find things to make the party more fun, and it came together perfectly in the last few days. Our friend Diane, in the red dress and mistletoe hat, offered us the use of her portable dance floor.  We cleared out a big chunk of the family room and made it dance central. What a great thing to own, or better yet, to have a generous friend own one.

And what is dancing without at least once instance of the Village People's YMCA?

Our neighbors Sally and Hannah, tearing up the floor.  Hannah was focused on how all the women danced and did her best to mimic it.

It's scary to have this much trouble so close together:  Derick, Doug and Bill.  Derick and Doug are both snowboarders.  I guess no one ever explained to them that it was for the younger generations. I need to ask them if Medicare covers snowboard accidents.

Manette and Theresa hamming it up. 

Taking a brief pause on the dance floor, me, Lisa, Mario and Julie.  I love how Julie's necklace took the flash from the camera and concentrated it into a little flash.

More on the dance floor.

Loris and JW mellowing out and watching the dance entertainment.

If there was any one true accomplishment for the evening, besides the obvious good friends, food and drink, it was getting this many people out of the kitchen at once.

Julie did a great job decorating the house, finding an excellent caterer, and making sure the entire event ran smoothly.  As your typical guy, I moved furniture and shoveled the driveway snow.  Now we are just trying to decide whether to give Diane back her dance floor or just have weekend dance parties for the next few weeks.

And we end with a transition.  This is Julie with Dick Pick.  I met Dick as a fellow Mountain Host at PCMR.  He's an avid photographer and today we are heading down to New Mexico to do a few days of wildlife photography. Hopefully that will generate a lot of nice pictures.

Also, I put a lot more pictures from the party out on DropBox here.