Two Days of Holiday Cheer

It's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday we had our holiday luncheon at work, followed by happy hour at a local bar. Since my fantastic company isn't keen on celebrating or even recognizing Christmas we held a Happy Release Party to celebrate a recent product release.

CAD hosted our second annual Chinese Auction (I think that's what it's called?) where everyone brings a gift and draws a number. The lowest number gets to select a gift and the following person can either steal that gift or unwrap another. Watching a room full of developers juiced up on beer and bickering over dollar store crap was more fun than I've had all year (as seen in the oh so flattering picture below).

There was a great turnout for happy hour and I got to spend time with some old friends. I don't think I say nearly enough how much my co-workers mean to me. There's something magical about that bunch.

Here's the disco ball on the food table. We had more food than we could eat and being I am trying to watch my sugar intake it was hard to pass up all those cakes and cookies (but I did!) I had some super yummy but very spicy Indian food instead. I think I've got a crush on samosas.


Under normal circumstances I would rip this picture to shreds and destroy all digital copies I could get my hands on. However, this is probably the happiest I've been all year and that laugh felt good. The chuckles resulted from trying to toss a Starbucks giftcard across the room and somehow getting it stuck in the ceiling. What are the odds?


The scene of the crime. Nothing says fancy like a sparsely decorated training room.


And a room full of peeps in varying stages of sobriety fighting over the following gifts. Please note, when a gift goes out of it's way to say Pick Me, just move along.



Happy Hour at the Park Ridge hotel. This is CAD, Bossman and I lifting a glass for Derek, who was virtually celebrating in California.


After yesterday's festivities I thought I was all holiday-d out, but I was gifted with an hour at Cha's holiday party at school. Santa, Christmas, and all the traditional holiday songs were embraced. It felt odd for the school to so openly wish everyone a Merry Christmas given the diversity of the students.


Here's Cha and Daddy enjoying some tasty treats. I was good and concentrated on the popcorn and pretzels but boy did those cookies look tempting.



After Cha's party we stopped at Max and Erma's for dinner and some nice family time. Matt and I are both exhausted from a very long week. When we got home tonight he told me I could head up to bed and he'd put Cha to sleep. I stayed downstairs for an hour or so to clean the kitchen and get things put away. As I was cleaning up the dining room I found this sweet scene:


I thought how wonderful it was that the kitties love the tree so much. Two minutes later I walked upstairs and hopped into bed, where I'm currently sitting with all four cats snuggled up beside me. How is it that they know where I'm headed even before I get there? Wherever I am in the house they have to be in the same area watching me. It's comforting but I little spooky sometimes.

Anyway, it's been a great couple of days and we have more fun planned for this weekend. Tomorrow the local library is having a reading of a ballerina book and the kids are encouraged to dress up. So, Cha will be putting on her favorite dance clothes and playing with friends. Afterwards we'll be celebrating Cait's 3rd birthday. We're praying for snow on Sunday so we can get out and do a little sledding.

Happy Friday everyone. It feels great to be upbeat for a change.