We just got home from a Christmas Party at our good friend's The Smith (web site coming soon I hear). The guys played Counter Strike while the girls did their thing. Then we did a White Elephant gift exchange where I got a Scantron form (No. 2 pencil not included) and my wife got a cool book called Do Penguins Have Knees which contains questions and answers to things like "Why is 'peanuts' listed as an ingredient in 'Plain M&Ms'?" (Note: the name has changed from 'Plain' to 'Milk Chocolate'). Other gifts: Marbles, Eatable Underwear, Body Paint, Snow globe, a CD of Christmas Rap songs, G.I. Joe home video in Spanish, etc. Then we played a game of Charades where in I did much better than last year when I just stood silent for 60 seconds.

The other Christmas Party was a luncheon this afternoon my company's corporate office. We had a Secret Santa gift exchange where I got one of my favorites movies, Run Lola Run. I guess I can take that off my wish list. I also got attacked by the gift I gave which was some Victoria's Secret body spray. The girl I gave it to sprayed me two or three times with it, and she didn't even know I was the one that gave it to her. The lunch was really good with beef and pork ribs that just fell off the bone. Yum yum.

Crazy thing is, this isn't even the 'Official Company Christmas Party'. The 'Official' one is tomorrow night at some fancy hotel where we are supposed to dress all fancy. But thing is, I also have our Church Christmas party tomorrow night, and my wife and I have obligations to be there. So I have let my co-workers down and will not be attending the Company event. And supposedly this looks bad to the people high up in the ranks at corporate office. As I hear it they take missing this thing as a slap in the face. Understandably so, since this is the biggest thing they do each year for their employees.

My wife is somewhat bothered by the fact that tonight I mentioned that maybe we should make an effort to attend the work thing tomorrow after our Church thing. I told her how Mike had mentioned that parties like this can "help your career". Point being, she's upset because she told me the same thing a month ago when I first told her that I wasn't going to go to the Company Party, and I apparently didn't care when it came from her, but now I react when Mike tells me. She's also upset because this is gonna be a fancy dinner and she wants to attend those types of things.

And with having an 8 week old child, it might be hard to attend the fancy party. Luckily we have some great friends who have put out the offer to watch him for a few hours. Actually, we have had many offers for people to baby-sit for even long periods of time. Thanks.