Party time

In honor of Songbird's birthday, a Friday 5 on parties, birthday or otherwise.

1) Would you rather be the host or the guest?

~The very idea of hosting a party makes me so incredibly anxious that I've rarely done it. In my mind I would like to have a 12th night party next year, but I don't know if I will follow through or not. I've come to enjoy having house guests; maybe I could enjoy giving parties, too. Maybe....

~I have to confess that my kids missed out on the big birthday party thing that so many kids seem to have these days. When they were little and we lived closer to family, we had parties with grandparents. Later we had a few parties at McDonald's and Chucky Cheese (and that one was a disaster!). The one time I tried to host a sleepover for LD#1 she got strep the day of the party...and again on the day we rescheduled it--seems like it just wasn't meant to be!

~I also have to admit that being invited to parties for a co-worker's kids when the Kid was little turned me off kid birthday parties a bit--big ones at least. This co-worker was fairly well off and her kids were pretty indulged. On their birthdays, she had these ginormous parties where she invited EVERYONE she knew and all their kids. On the one hand she was trying to be very hospitable (and in a way, compensate for having no grandparents or aunts and uncles) I think, but on the other hand--the excess! Here are kids who already had more stuff than they could deal with getting 40-50 birthday presents. Ai yi yi. Maybe that is just another sign of my grinchiness, but that really bothered me.

2) When you are hosting, do you clean everything up the minute the guests go home? Will you accept help with the dishes?

~If I were hosting I would be glad to accept help with the dishes, and I would also want everything done before I went to bed. I'm not an obsessively neat person by any means but getting up to a big mess that has to be dealt with is depressing.

3) If you had the wherewithal, and I guess I mean more than money, to throw a great theme party, what would the theme be?

~If I had access to a plethora of costumes, I think I would love a dress-up costume party--but only if I could be sure to provide truly wonderful costumes for everyone who wanted one, so that no one felt left out or overshadowed.

~Or if money were no object, I would rent a big house at the beach and invite all my friends for a long weekend with lots of good food and just hanging out.

4) What's the worst time you ever had at a party?

~Going to a large party with lots of people I don't know well and not being able to produce the proper small talk and "schmooze" and feeling really left out. And parties in my early married life that ended up with a lot of drunken sailors (as in Navy guys). Ugh. Can you tell I'm not much of a party person?

5) And to end on a brighter note, what was the best?

~Small to medium sized gatherings with good friends and no pressure to feel "on." Probably the best big party I've ever been to was LD#2's rehearsal party--a gourmet pizza dinner for family followed by a lake dessert cruise for a larger group of extended family and friends. Lots of fun and no pressure.