Our Lips Will Be Well Moisturized in 2013

had about 10 different titles for this post but decided on the one I did for reasons you will soon read. Tuesday night made two nights in a row of Christmas partying for me as I had some girls over for a favorite things party. This is the same group of gals that used to gather once a week to watch American Idol and are thus called, "The Idol Girls". Of course, once Simon Cowell hit the road so did we, and we no longer get together to watch Idol. Instead we just get together whenever we can. In this case, it has been since August 2 since we have all gotten together - so it has been a while to say the least and I was really looking forward to getting the gang together, catching up and having  some good laughs.

Back in August when we were together I asked everyone if they wanted to do a favorite things party for Christmas and we agreed. A favorite things party works like this, a person decides on an item or items that is one of their favorites and then purchases the item for each person in attendance. We set the limit at $5 per person and since there are eight of us (meaning we would buy seven gifts), we would be spending no more than $35. You can go lower than $5 if you want and you can even buy a pack of something and open the pack and distribute one of each to the attendees - whatever floats your boat. I'm not sure how other favorite things parties work, but this is how ours worked. After all, none of us are Oprah and we aren't going to be purchasing new cars, iPads or Ralph Lauren sweaters for each other - just sayin'.

I was really excited about this party and had been looking forward to it for weeks. On Monday, Candy sent me a text saying she would not be able to come. The father of a man at church had passed away this past Friday and her husband would be speaking at the memorial service. All of her normal babysitters were also going to the memorial service and so she had no where to send her four children. So, she wasn't going to be able to make it. On Tuesday morning, I got to work and had an email waiting on me from Jackie; due to something unexpected, she wasn't going to make it. She has a key to my house so she dropped off her very delicious caramel chocolate brownies and her gifts for everyone. Tuesday afternoon as I was leaving work, Amy sent me a text and said she was not going to make it. Her parents' were supposed to babysit for her, but they bailed on her in favor of something else and she had no back up babysitter. So, she came by around 5:00 and dropped off her food and gifts. So, that was three down for the count, five (including myself) expected to show.

The party was slated for a 6:00 p.m. start and a couple of minutes before 6:00 Kendra arrived and then a few minutes after 6:00, Erika arrived. Around 6:15 I sent a text to Lisa asking where she was and then around 6:20 sent the same text to Sara. Kendra, Erika and I went ahead and started eating and soon after Sara responded saying she had emailed me last week saying she wasn't going to make it. I never got the email, which isn't very surprising as sometimes emails will go to junk or quarantine and I don't happen to notice. I checked my texts from Lisa again and as it turns out, she had sent a text earlier in the day saying she was going to the memorial service and would be late. So, Kendra, Erika and I stuffed our faces and caught up on some episodes of the Pioneer Woman episodes - in other words, it was like a Friday night only with a smorgasbord of food. Lisa got out of the funeral around 7:00 and was at the party by 7:15 and fixed herself a plate and caught us up on how the memorial service was. It was kind of comical because Erika, Kendra and I see each other on a regular basis and didn't have much to catch up on so there wasn't much talking taking place.

After Lisa finished with her dinner, it was time for our favorite things gift exchange - the moment we had all been anxiously anticipating. Since the favorite things had been my idea and since we had never done it before, I went first so that everyone would kind of follow suit. I wanted each person to tell about their item(s) and why they decided on that item(s) and why it was one of their favorite things. My items were a recyclable grocery bag from Publix because I wanted everyone to have a bag to take their loot home in and also because I use recyclable grocery bags (I hate having hundreds of plastic bags around) and love them and I love Publix! Inside each bag was the main gift which was a flour sack kitchen towel. I chose the kitchen towels because they are the most durable and best kitchen towels I have ever used. They are great for drying dishes, hands, etc. and when they get stained and have holes in them, they make great clothes for dusting your furniture. Seriously, best towels ever, I will never use anything but these.

After I passed out my gifts I passed out Jackie's which was peppermint Chapstick which was chosen because her lips are always dry in the winter and a packet of Kleenex because you can never have too many; plus, the packaging was cute. I then passed out Amy's gifts which were coupons for various items of free food from Chick-fil-A. When we opened the coupons, we noticed they were expired, but after texting Amy, she said that Chick-fil-A will accept an expired coupon. I've never tried, so I don't know for sure, but time will tell.

Next up was Lisa who gave us a Carmex lip balm - the new non-medicated ones - and a package of chewy sweet tarts, both of which she loves. then it was Kendra's turn and she gave us a package of Pepperidge Farm Gingerbread mini cookies which she loves and are only available at Christmas time and a tube of soft lips. At this point, we were laughing so hard about the overwhelming number of lip products. Last but not least was Erika who gave us each a tube of organic homemade lip balm which she purchased from everyone's favorite craft site, Etsy. She had purchased a tube earlier in the year and really liked it so she got one for each of us. So, apparently a lot of my friends really love lip balm, which is an item that never even crossed my mind when I was planning what gift to give as my favorite thing. I think it goes without saying that we are all set on lip balm for the next few months.

We laughed and laughed about the lip balm selections - and no two were alike. We decided that next year we should make a list of categories and draw and then the person will purchase a favorite thing from the category so that maybe we won't end up with four lip balms. We chatted for a little while longer, divided up the leftovers, and then Lisa told us about a Jimmy Fallon spoof on Downton Abbey called Downton Sixbey and we looked it up on You Tube and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes laughing at that. The girls left after our Downton Sixby viewing and I soon went to bed. Even though the night didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, it was still a lot of fun. I am really blessed to have so many great friends!