A Simple Holiday Party: the Recap

Since there were a few people who couldn't make it to the annual holiday party, here's the recap.

(no photos, cuz my d-cam is broken)

Sometime around 12pm - 5pm:
Ards arrives at Steph's house to help w/ clean-up and to start cooking the big turkey. Also her signature dish -- bread pudding!

Wuken also arrives in the afternoon to drop off a red velvet cake (very pretty!).

6:00pm:
Shiz & じゅるる arrive w/ a partially heated half-ham and mini Bisquick biscuits. We ponder about helping w/ cooking, but the big turkey is taking up all the room in the oven *laugh* じゅるる does run to the supermarket to grab veggies to add to the stuffing.

7:30pm:
Bung and V arrive w/ drinks & chips. They even brought alcohol.
Somewhere around this time, Wuken leaves to pick up his +2, who are going to see Avatar later in the evening.

Turkey is ready.

8:00pm:
Den arrives w/ chicken from Pioneer Chicken. Ards didn't know that it's the boys' favorite fried chicken place. I personally like their fried gizzards. Den didn't bring any of those, though. BTW, the fried chicken was the first food item to sell out at the potluck!

Panda arrives w/ brownies. It's her first attempt making them, she says.

I think the rest of the boys start arriving at this time too.
Dee brings ingredients for a Caesar salad & gets working in the kitchen. Ards made stuffing w/ no problem, but w/o the veggies. じゅるる cuts & cooks down the veggies to dump into the stuffing, so we can bake in the oven. Ards then attempts to make gravy, but burns the first batch of roux. Then there's a bit of a panic about the turkey juices spilling on the floor & Shiz kicks everyone not cooking out of the kitchen.

Since Dee & じゅるる are busy doing other work, we have no one to carve the turkey. Ards ends up doing it, but gets very tired in the process. Well, she was standing all day cooking & cleaning...

Chris arrives w/ Porto's cheese rolls and other pastries. Allen, Jon & Vu arrive w/ Jon's pasta salad, drinks & chips. Jon made two types of pasta salad, one w/ deli meat spread out on top so it looked like a big meat platter. The other one was a veggie one w/ colorful veggies (bell peppers & cucumber?) on top. The meat one went very quickly.

We tell everyone to start eating.

Later, around 8:30pm(?):
Ben & Sofie arrive w/ drinks.

Half the group is sitting around the TV watching Food Network.
I think the boys were in the kitchen for a while talking about who knows what, even though they see each other like twice a week. They can't get enough of each other...

All the cheese rolls disappear, even though Chris bought a dozen of them.

Later, around 9:00pm(?):
Mike and g/f A show up w/ mashed potatoes and cake.
Ards in the kitchen washing gazillion dishes.

Even later, around 10:00pm:
Steebu shows up. and at the same time, a bunch of people leave (Bung, V, Ben, Sofie, Panda, Ards).

A lot later, around 11:00pm:
Sasami, sister & bro-in-law show up w/ Sasami's cookies. No XBox controller ones for us. But we got gingerbread man and mint-choco chip cookies. Very yum.

12:00am:
I think Steph falls asleep around this time.
And the boys start watching Starship Troopers.
Allen & Vu go home around this time.

Meanwhile Shiz starts packing up food for everyone to take home.

2:30am:
Movie finally ends.
Shiz sends everyone home w/ packed up food.
Dee & じゅるる do the rest of clean up, and we left around 3:00am.

The end.

Gift exchange?
We didn't do that this year. We were adults and had lovely conversation!

PS. Let me know if I forgot anything...