Sunday, December 4, 2011

Favorite Things. A Song and A Party.

First the SONG, so that you'll have it stuck on replay in your mind all the livelong day:

Raindrops on noses and raindrops on kittens
Black dirty kettles and red 'lympic mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These aren't a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and cream colored poodles
Doorbells and sleigh bells and beef stew with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my what-the-heck? things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bitesssss
When the bee stingssss
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so baaaaaaaad




And now, the PARTY:

Way back in September, on a rare night home all by myself, I started a new habit that became an obsession. I signed up for a pinterest account and repinned all the good ideas I encountered on other like-minded stranger's boards.

You can view my boards here.
One idea I came across was a Favorite Things Party:

"Each person brings a favorite thing (anything you like.. your favorite lip gloss, favorite 
kitchen tool, favorite gift wrapping supply, a gift card for your favorite frozen yogurt, a
 favorite paperback book, a favorite travel accessory, favorite decorating item, favorite
 devotional, favorite grooming item, coupon for favorite coffee shop beverage, etc.). It
 can't cost more than $10, and each person brings four of the same thing. When you arrive
 at the party, you write your name on four slips of paper and throw them in a big bowl.
 The bowl is passed around, and each person takes four names (making sure you don't pick
 your own.. or two of the same name). One at a time each person introduces their favorite
 thing and then reads the four names they picked from the bowl, passing out their gift to
 those four guests. After everyone at the party has presented their favorite thing, each
 person should end up with four gifts to take home. It's always interesting to see what
 people choose, and some guests bring a notepad and pen to jot down what people love."


I totally LOVED this premise for a gathering.
So I sent an email out to a few friends to see if anyone else thought this sounded like fun.
Half did.

So on Friday night, Dec 2, sixteen of us met in my living room to share our favorite things with each other.
Let me try to tell you how much fun that was.






SO fun.




You know what?
I love being a fifty year old woman.
I love that we (as a demographic) look forward to sharing our good ideas with each other. That we are happy to have others benefit from our experiences and great retail finds. I'm thankful that the flow of ideas and information doesn't get shut off because we want to 'keep it for ourselves'. I'm tickled that I came away from that evening just a little bit smarter about toilet cleaning techniques and wiser about restorative hair products.

This isn't an exhaustive list of our favorite things, but it is a sampling: (Along with a few random pics)



















  • Mini Whisk
  • Olive Garden's Italian Dressing
  • French Milled Soap, exclusively available from Winners
  • Silicon Spatula/Scoop






























  • Trans Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Album
  • Black Scarf with strand of sparkly silver
  • Shopping Cart coin thingy to add to your keychain
























  • Morocco Oil (for your hair)
  • A book about Leisure
  • Itty Bitty Reading Light



























  • Starbucks Mug
  • Vanilla and Black Raspberry Hand cream
  • Toilet Stone




















  • Jar Opening Aid
  • OPI Nail Polish "I'm Not Really a Waitress" (I just went to OPI's website to confirm color name. Whoa. Cool sight.)
  • etc
I highly recommend parties like this. I highly recommend inviting friends who may or may not know each other. I highly recommend having friends. 

Not everyone knew each other. We all come from different backgrounds and live unique lives. But we all have favorite things and everyone brought an enthusiastic attitude to my house and It. Was. Awesome. 

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. My house. I'm going to miss it once it sells. I love that I can fit many people into my living room.
2. My friends. I love them; the ones that totally get into an event like this. And ones that totally don't.
3. The new favorite things that I got ... love each one. 

Shalom,

1 comment:

Tricia said...

That party sounds like so much fun! So where will you move to when your house sells?