We’ve been on the fence for the last few months about The Party.  We’ve been getting inquiries about it since the Christmas party season.  For real.  We deliberately kept the first weekend in May open, but couldn’t bring ourselves to committing to hosting anything.  We had conversations over the months about changes needed to be made to the party – we needed to cut the guest list or we needed to hire staff to help with the party or both.  We weren’t quite sure how to politely cut the guest list and at the same time, we knew for every cut we made, we’d end up adding two.   We talked about slashing the guest list to the absolute bone, inviting only what we termed our ‘everyday people’.  That list got written up about two months ago.  We dillied, we dallied.  We couldn’t quite decide and everywhere we went, people inquired about what our Cinco de Mayo plans were.

About a week ago, we made the call.  We weren’t having a party, just a few friends over.  We verbally invited just about everyone, but waited until late Wednesday, 3 days before the actual party date, to issue any formal invitations.  Which read:

We’re not having ‘the party’,
we’re just having a few select friends over for Watermelon Margs.
And Lemonade for the kids.
No pinata though.

Although we did end up with a pinata.  It was a Friday night happy hour at Betty’s decision.    They got it at what we call ‘The Mexican Store’ – the Latino convenience store next to Aqui Es Mexico over near the Cville Market Saturday afternoon.    I think it was the most glorious pinata we’ve ever had.

It was still a small, intimate gathering though.  We went through two punchbowl of margaritas and two of lemonade.  I may have overly stocked up on tequila, but that’s okay.  It’s good to have tequila on hand and maybe I can figure out how to make small batch margs again, instead of by the punchbowl.   Not that it’s a bad thing to have a punchbowl of margaritas, but it is a commitment to have that many on hand at one time.

It was a far more relaxed affair for us than it has been in some time.  We actually got to visit with every last guest – not just greet, but actually converse with.  That hasn’t happened in years.  There was was some fond reminiscing of parties past.   We’ve been having this party for a dozen years now, since before we had Edie, and there are certain aspects we have down pat.    We realized we can decide on a Wednesday to have a party on Saturday and pull it off.  We also realized that after14 years of yard work, all we have to do is mow the lawn to garner compliments on our yard.

Now that we remember how easy it is to throw a party, maybe next year we’ll have the bash again.