Christmas is accompanied by a certain level of decorum and pomp for most but, for us, it comes with tackiness and hair.
Our Christmas party is a December tradition that went from formal and fancy to ridiculous and irreverent many years ago. Never heard of it? We keep the invitee list slim so we can actually talk to our guests, a refreshing change after our Halloween largeness. There have been almost no new additions to that list for over a decade so our attendees are pretty much the people that have known us since our rollerblades and overalls days.
Jeremy typically goes a few disgusting steps beyond an ugly sweater and completely exemplifies holiday hideousness.
This event has some holiday standards mixed with a few seasonal abnormals. Gaggy gifts, tinselly sweaters, tasteless fake fur, tasteful food, massive moustaches, ping-pong showdowns, awkward dance competitions, absurd photos, and close encounters of the Rowley kind are all part of the routine.
Yes, tacky comes standard with the Sabins.
This year we ordered food from Corner Bakery Café. The spinach salad, pesto cavatappi, hummus and veggies, bruschetta with parmesan toast, and sweets basket probably made for our favorite catering in years.
Just Dance has become a tradition at our party.
I took pictures of any of the assembled crew that wanted them for over an hour and a half at the affair. Sadly, this took more time away from busting my sweet Just Dance 2017 moves than expected but some of the resulting images are priceless… revolting, but priceless.
Boys 4 Toys is sure to become the next boy-band sensation.
The white elephant gifts were much the same as they always have been… good, bad, even worse. Man-scented candles, fry pillows, and pooping-dog calendars were just a few of the finer things that could have been mine. (Incidentally, I just got good hot chocolate and I was just fine with that.)
What an adorable couple!
Thanks loyal Christmas partiers! It’s cool to celebrate the holidays every year with a lowkey gathering where the same small group of buddies wear what they shouldn’t and shake what they definitely shouldn’t- from hind ends to hidden gifts.
It’s easy, when you spend a substantial amount of time and money on a Halloween party, to feel a little crazy. Oh wait, that’s not where I was going with this. Rewind… it’s easy to feel a little disappointed when guests hurry off after such a shindig without helping pick up any of the 150 cups they left in your kitchen or when you hear a kid complaining about the lack of a food truck at the affair. Yes, it’s easy to feel a bit underwhelmed by thanklessness after you’ve organized an overwhelming event but that’s not what I would like to write about here. Instead, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the elixirs to our insanity.
I love our spooky lady.
Jason wanted to wear his Han Solo outfit for Halloween so I became a blonde Bespin Leia. If you don’t recognize my garb, you aren’t a true Star Wars fan.
We have about seven full skeletons in our Halloween arsenal, along with more spare bones than a can of salmon.
We had more assistance with our party this time than ever before. Jacob, Lee, Sue, and Keith all came over one night for a party-decorating party. We got a whole room done that evening; it was miraculous. The creative juices were so abundant we were all a little sticky in the end. My brother-in-law also joined us, along with some of our nieces and nephews, on a few separate occasions and we had a great time putting up spider webs and lights. During the event, Jenny supervised the carnival games. For take down, Fran, Cam, Rowley, Lee, Sue, and Keith all offered their assistance one evening. With their help, we had Halloween packed away by Thanksgiving, or shortly thereafter. Thank you all! Not only was your help very valuable, it was a much-appreciated gesture of gratitude.
A lot of this hair was mine and a lot of it was not.
In honor of the new film, we fashioned a Potter area.
As for the party itself, here are a few of this year’s random stats:
1. We had nearly 90 attendees, a new record I believe. But, for the record, we were not trying to break any records. Hopefully that upward trend stabilizes, otherwise we are going to have to institute an admittance process.
Decorating for our party is both creatively stimulating and depleting.
2. We went through 30 liters of soda, in addition to an incalculable amount of water.
3. Traditionally, about 30% of our attendees are kids. This year, children accounted for half of the partyers.
These bags took longer to assemble than I care to admit.
4. We assembled six dozen party favors and gave out every single one of them. That was a first.
5. We had a photographer taking old-time hand-developed pictures on black aluminum using a wet-plate collodion method, a process invented in 1851. The procedure was as interesting as the results.
The Victorian photographs were eerie and interesting.
6. We had 18 flavors of gourmet cotton candy spun in our backyard. (No bratty kid, not a food truck this time.)
7. A girl got hit in the face while the piñata was being hammered down. I knew that was going to happen sooner or later. For some reason, kids become animals over a few Twizzlers when a piñata is involved.
I’m not sure why an orb filled with candy makes kids simultaneously both uncontrollably excited and destructive.
8. After the gathering, Jason and I were up until 4:30 in the morning cleaning crumbs and food globs off our floors. Thanks Cam for coming back to help with the first rounds of sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, and furniture replacement at 12:30 AM!
This pirates’ cove was Jason’s idea. He even made a swashbuckling soundtrack to accompany it.
Who doesn’t like a nice spooning?
And that is how we survived our Halloween party this year, with a lot of gratitude, and a little frustration, in our hearts. To all our helpers, thank you for being enablers of our madness! We can’t tell you how much your aid meant. You are awesome!
Due to the success and satisfaction of our hike to Desolation Peak, my nephews became interested in hiking Mount Nebo, an idea I may have placed in their heads. So, on Labor Day, a select group of my family just went for it. Climbing Nebo was predictably tiring, a little scary, and totally amazing!
Although it was early when we started, we were ready to climb and conquer.
Mt. Nebo, at an elevation of 11,929, is the highest peak in the Wasatch Range. Sorry Timp fans, your beloved’s 11,750 feet don’t even come close.* Getting to the top of Nebo and back requires 8.5 miles of trekking and about 3,400 feet of elevation change, not too bad for a mount of that magnitude.
We passed through meadows lit by brilliant fingers of sunshine.
My dad, brother-in-law, and a couple nephews began the journey with us early from the Mona Pole Trailhead. The weather was predicted to be cold. Temperatures in the 30s at the top and 20-MPH winds were possible. We brought beanies and as many jackets as we could stuff in our packs; they turned out to be unnecessary. The conditions stayed pleasant and temperatures remained in the 60s for most of our hike. This trail did not come with shade, at least not much, so the cooler temperatures were perfect in combination with that constant sun exposure.
The trail to Nebo didn’t mess around with switchbacks; it just scaled straight up.
It took us eight hours to make the roundtrip trek to Nebo’s northern false summit, more commonly known as Wolf Pass Peak. Wolf Pass Peak has an elevation of 11,440 feet, almost 500 feet less than the true summit.
Wolf Pass, at the base of Nebo’s toughest slopes, provided views in every direction.
Why didn’t we make it to the true summit when it was only half a mile away? Excellent question. Well, two members of our party had to turn around 30 minutes before we reached the apex of Wolf Pass Peak due to a poorly-scheduled music lesson. Hence, my dad was placed in charge of my nephew’s safety, a responsibility that made him nervous thanks to the omnipresent drop-offs. (I don’t remember my dad being edgy about taking his kids out on questionable precipices when I was young.) He wasn’t about to scramble to the true summit while on guardian duty.
Not a bad spot to meditate.
Jason and I considered going to the true summit, the North Peak, without my dad and nephew, after all we were only about 45 minutes from the tippy top, but sense eventually got the better of us. Here’s the thing, the terrain between Wolf Pass Peak and the North Peak on Nebo is scary. It’s what mountaineers call “a knife edge.” Why? Because it looks as thin as a blade and feels even more dangerous. On a knife edge, you will find an overabundance of diluted air instead of ground at your feet.
For a big mound, Nebo’s Wolf Pass Peak had a tiny top.
We asked a couple descending groups about their summit experience to ascertain if the trail was as daunting as it looked. The first couple we questioned told us that going to the summit was the most frightening incident of their lives. The next group said it wasn’t as bad as Kings Peak or Timpanogos, both mountains we’ve scaled without issue. These conflicting accounts didn’t help us guess the correct amount of dread we should be feeling.
This picture does not properly portray the sketchiness of the path between Wolf Pass Peak and the North Peak.
We decided to try continuing but after about five minutes of carefully treading through rocky twirls where a misstep could mean taking a swift shortcut to the bottom, I realized I was likely to have a height-induced panic attack and that wouldn’t decrease my chances of hurting myself. Hence, we settled for Wolf Pass Peak and made it back undamaged.
Even on Wolf Pass Peak, the landscape was a little dizzying.
It was a fantastic hike with jaw-dropping views that I got to enjoy with my fantastic family. Sometimes the tough things in life are the easiest.
I would recommend this trek to any stout-hearted nature-lover, with a caution to evaluate skills and conditions before jumping on the path from Wolf Pass Peak to the true summit.
* “Close” has been defined here as 178 feet for the purpose of me being right.
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