U-G-L-Y

Although my first job was a hostess, I have never considered myself the hostess type. I'm not an entertainer. I enjoy being entertained. I have never planned a party. I've had 'get togethers' but never once have I sent out invitations to mass amounts of friends to come over for a party. But when the opportunity came, with the purchase of our home, to have the option to have a party, Gordon and I jumped on the chance.

To get ourselves and our friends into the Christmas/Winter season we decided to have an 'Ugly Christmas Sweater Party'. This is not a new idea that we came up with. A few years ago Gordon and I went to one of these parties. We had a blast checking out all of the party goers Christmas sweaters. As we left the party we said to each other one day we would like to have one of those parties. So we did.

Our friends accepted our invitation to make complete fools of ourselves and gather together to have a Christmas party. Almost everyone that could come showed up in ridiculous sweaters by our request (what great friends, right?!). There were some pretty awful looking sweaters. I was so excited that our friends with kids also had their children participating with their not so cute sweaters (although on them they were adorable!). It's pretty amazing that everyone was able to find an ugly sweater. I know they are in high demand this time of year.

It was amazing to see how many people we could fit inside our little house! At one point Gordon thought he would have to number people 1,2,1,2, etc. and have the 1's stay upstairs and the 2's go downstairs. Neither of us minded the full house. We are just so grateful that we had such a wonderful turn out. We feel like we made a lot of new friends.

The many attempts at a group photo:

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

Attempt #3

We only cut off half of Bruce

Shelli, Kim, Katherine, and Me

Audree and Me

Friend Christmas parties are so much funner than family ones (no offense family). Along with the regular chums we hang around with, we invited a few couples from our ward that we really wanted to get to know better. Gordon and I put on our host and hostess hats and mingled with each party guest. It was so much fun getting to know everyone better. I feel like our party was a selfish party. We ended up making a lot of new friends that we hope will want to hang out with us in the future.

Our Ugly Christmas Sweater party helped get into the Christmas spirit a little bit more. We want to give a big thanks to all of our friends that were able to come! It definitely wouldn't have been a party without you (and your sweaters).