The biggest Christmas party I've ever attended.

Tonight marked my first big Christmas party. By big I mean a room filled with 70+ people - majority of whom I have never met. My relatives live in Vancouver (Washington state, not BC) and casually mentioned the party back in Thanksgiving. 

Guests with last names A-K were to bring appetizers and L-Z were to bring desserts. This afternoon I drove to Trader Joe's and purchased 2 boxes of Trader Joe's pastry puffs for the party, Cowboy Bark, salmon jerky, baked snap pea chips, dark chocolate almond toffee, chocolate covered s'mores, and a bunch of other delectable a that I won't eat but I know my family in Hawaii will.  I headed on over to TJ Maxx to get a serving dish and also some dog toys for my canine pals at home. 

I baked the puff pastries, sampled one, and felt pretty happy about how productive I was being. The puff pastries were to die for btw. Feta cheese and carmelized onions on fluffy puff pastries in bite size proportions? Yes.  The party was to start at 6 so I decided to leave at 4:45 because 1) it's Friday, and 2) traffic always sucks around this time. 

IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO GET FROM TUALATIN TO VANCOUVER. Normally that would take me 25-30 minutes tops.  Carrying my puff pastries in one hand and trying to throw on my jacket and grab my purse in the other, I hobbled on over to the front door. 

I make a beeline to the food, devour everything to my heart's content, and TRY to be somewhat sociable. It's pretty hard for me to be outgoing when thrust into a room with so many unfamiliar faces. The Asian:White ratio was about 1:25. 

I've never been to a Christmas party that had a schedule of bingo, raffles, guessing games, and a grand prize of 2 round trip tickets on Alaska Airlines. There was also an amazing prize table and thanks to staying late with a few other stragglers, I managed to go home with a bunch of free stuff!

I got a pair of long socks from Urban Outfitters, 2 pairs of Kate Spade socks (!!!), chocolate covered Oreo poker chips, giant bookmark paper clips, very cute Vera Bradley-esque page flags, a Culture Vulture notepad that I can use for blogging, 2 Jindo Fox phone charms straight from Seoul (!!!), 3 list pads, 2 types of Stash Tea perfect for Christmas, and 3 Christmas-themed reed diffusers from Pier 1. 

I'm going to do the whole Gift of the Magi thing and give majority of the things to family members as gifts, but of course keep a few things for myself. 

All in all my first big Christmas party turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable!