Christmas Party - Passageways Style......

Passagways Christmas party was this past weekend. It's something that everyone around here anticipates every year, as it's always a great time. Good food, lots of drinks, and an always- hilarious White Elephant Exchange.

This year, the party was at the Trails in their upstairs room. Probably a good thing, since at the end of the night, the party got a tad bit "rowdy".....

Had New York Strip Steak for dinner, which was delish.....Dan had some Prime Rib that was also good. I indulged in several (OK, probably SEVERAL too MANY) gin and tonics, as I had a designated driver for the evening. No complaining there.

As usual, the White Elephant Gift Exchange was a hoot......I ended up walking away with a bottle of wine, which was good, as we've taken a liking to good wine. (Although, KARISSA, that isn't really a white elephant gift. White Elephant gifts are supposed to be funny and stupid, or ugly and used, or inappropriate and raunchy, not a bottle of WINE........however, I'm not complaining.) Most of you can probably guess what we took for our White Elephant Gift.....

Someone.....(honest to God, we're not sure who) gave Dan a toilet paper holder at one point for a gift. I thought it was one person, he thought it was another, his ex thought it was yet even someone different....... It's hideous. Let me describe: The thing stands about mid-thigh height, and is brown, and carved out of wood..... It is a bloodhound dog, whose hands are in front of him, appropriately holding a roll of toilet paper. In addition, the smiling thing had a rack for your reading material while you are using the restroom. (Nice.) To top it all off, it had a clothespin on its nose. I couldn't WAIT to get rid of this thing, and to be honest, Dan wasn't wanting to hold onto it too badly either. It caused fights at the Christmas party. The rule is that the same gift can only be stolen three times. I'm pretty sure it passed hands four times, and then someone else altogether ended up with it. Ha! :) I hope that Chuck and Robin enjoy the prized TP holder. (Dan told Chuck that he was going to miss it. Chuck assured him that he could come over to their house and poop anytime that he wanted.)

However, in my opinion, best gift of the night was not the dog toilet paper holder. It was indeed something different altogether. Let me explain: Back in AUGUST, I was traveling to a conference. During the same time, the company was doing an internal "auction" for charity purposes. Everyone brought an item, we auctioned them off (using our new awesome auction module on our internal portal, of course), and proceeds went to charity. The girls from support (Kim and Karissa) ran across a senior picture of me in a dictionary that was on my desk. (That I obviously had for years.) It's a funny picture, I must admit. It's me, decked out with all my sports attire, trophies, uniforms, and I'm wearing jeans with a t-shirt, TUCKED IN. I have curled under bangs, and look nothing like you all know me today. It's hilarious. The girls blew up the picture, and "autographed" it, and sold it in the auction. It brought a whopping $3. Gail, our CEO bought it. She graciously gave it up, and brought it for the white elephant gift this year. (I laugh aloud as I'm typing this.) The funniest part about it, though, was that Chuck (Evil Chuck, not the Chuck that got the TP holder.) unwrapped it, and he didn't know who it was. He's a fairly new employee, who doesn't have any interaction with me on a day to day basis, and we only typically see one another in passing in the hallway or at the coffee pot. He stood there forever trying to figure out who it was, and why it was funny. Everyone was trying to tell him, "IT'S SARAH!" Finally, when he realized it, he said, "Well, I guess I know what I'm taking home with me tonight!" (Meaning: No one is going to want to steal this from me!) HAHAHA!!!
Anyway, it was a great party, a good time was had by all, and I look forward to another Passageways style party soon to come! :)

Here are a few pictures from the night:

Karissa and I

Lee and Tim. :-)

Andy, Manish, Lee and Paroon. Notice that Andy has the whole roll of tickets for the bar. I'm pretty sure that the 2-drink-ticket-per-person rule was broken.

Dan and I

Newlyweds. Nick and Rachel Rowe.

Dan and Anne