Our friend Sharona the Shutterbug, unofficial photographer of all our Liberty Lounge parties …
Sharona, wearing the finery she *almost* won in the Solstmas gift exchange
recently sent me a flock of photos she took at our 14-hour-long Solstmas open house a few weeks ago. I plan to post many of them here in the next week or so, but in the meantime, I just wanted to give you a glimpse into the mind of the Cocktail Host.
Our friend Michael and the Cocktail Host, who seems to be having some sort of epiphany. Photo by Sharona Gottlieb.
While I was running around on Christmas morning decorating ice rings for the punch bowl and figuring out what glassware we should use for the keg of home-brewed pumpkin porter our friend Matthew was bringing …
Matthew and his home-brewed pumpkin porter. Photo by Sharona Gottlieb.
… Dave decided that we needed a diagram of where all the various drinks were, so he wouldn’t have to “keep explaining to everyone where the wine glasses are.” (Click on it to see it in its full glory.) After an hour of fiddling around with his computer (while I stewed about how he wasn’t doing something useful, damnit!), he came up with this 3D graphic, which we posted in a few different places in the house. I’m not sure anyone noticed them without being prompted (at which point we could have just told them where the wine glasses were), but once they saw it they were pretty impressed.
Dave's Powerpoint diagram for Solstmas
At the time he was working on it, I confess I would have rather he were reorganizing the living room or helping me clean the kitchen. But I also think it shows how he’s the yin to my yang, the Abbott to my Costello, the peanut butter to my jelly, the wax to my wane, the mad to my sane (but who is who in this case?).
Without me, our parties would be less obsessively planned, with less homemade food and fewer fancy cocktails. Without him, however, we wouldn’t have synced wireless streaming audio in every room, firewood schlepped and stacked, and “stadium lighting” brightly illuminating the ping-pong table in the backyard at midnight. And there would certainly be no Powerpoint slides, of that I am sure.
It might be easier to plan a party with someone who has priorities similar to my own, but the I suspect the parties would also be a lot less fun.
The Cocktail Hostess and Host. Photo by Sharona Gottlieb. Silly Mrs. Claus apron courtesy of my mom.
The Hostess Diary 