Well I think we’re mostly ready for the holiday open house/party. Mr. SK says we will have too much food, so that seems like a good approach to me.

I made a sign for the piano. On the one hand, it feels a little passive aggressive. But OTOH, I’ve seen people set their drinks down on the piano at the yearly piano party we attend, so I feel like I need to have this sign set up.



I’ll put the lid up but leave the fallboard down, which I believe Jodi or Nina suggested.

Here's an alternative for you:





I think yours is fine, or you could leave off the italics on "play" and slightly change the wording.

"Feel free to play the piano, but please do not place any food or beverages on it"

I like that sign, except it looks like artwork and would be worried people wouldn’t actually read it!

Anyway, I will go with the one I made.

Now to make some more cookies and then go to bed!

Hope all goes well.

Have fun!

Thanks y’all.

It’s raining kinda hard and supposed to rain all day long today. Phooey. Hopefully people will still come. (Local stereotype is that people don’t go out when it rains...

Well.....? Maybe they were all at home glued to the Clemson/OSU game. I know I was.

The battle of the tigers looms.

quote:

Well.....?

I think it was a success — mostly! Hostessing is hard and after the fact, I realized various things I could have done to take care of people better. But I’ll work on that next time! All in all I think it went well, people had fun taking to each other. And I really enjoyed getting to show people our home. Everyone loved the Xmas tree+piano combo, and a lot of people raved about the view from the family room and so on, so that was nice.

Everyone who rsvped came, and no one showed up who hadn’t rsvped.

There was way too much food! Like, oh my god way too much.

Among the things that stand out in my head: getting to connect with some neighbors who I invited. Oh! And one big thing: one of my neighbors is a cellist and she came and after talking, we are planning to do some music together soon! Yay!

Another thing that was nice was introducing my mother to people (did I say she’s visiting?)

One of the ASL profs here came and he brought his mother, they are both deaf, but I was able to sign with them and intro them to other guests and then I passed out some notebooks and people were furiously communicating with them by writing, so that worked out really well and it made me happy that they were very included.

Oh! My mother brought one of those DVDs that is a video of a crackling fireplace, so I had that playing. It was kind of cheesy but looks much nicer than the blank tv screen! Still, how modern, a virtual fireplace. :P

Oh I forgot to mention, the shoe thing worked fine. People were prepared/knew what to expect, and almost everyone availed themselves of our guest-slippers. One couple brought their own slippers

And no one set their drink on my piano

Did you play for them?

Did any guests play?

Glad it went well. Wish I had been there.
I could have guarded the piano.

quote:

Originally posted by LL:
Did you play for them?

Did any guests play?

No on both accounts, unfortunately! I wanted to play but in the middle of the event there were too many people and I was trying introduce people, get them drinks etc. Then one person who I had actually promised I would play for her ended up having to leave sort of suddenly, and then near the end, the remaining people sort of cleared out at the same time and I lost my chance.

Next time! Also, next time when it’s not overcrowded.

Sounds great! I loved the story of the deaf friends and the pads of paper. It sounds like everyone came and had a great time. And too much food is far, far better than running out, in my opinion.

I agree, hostessing is hard. We had a get together last night for no particular reason other than all the kids were in town. I told Mr. Nina that his job was to greet, introduce, and manage drinks. Let's just say he fell down on the job. I looked over at one point (it was pot luck, but I was helping people assemble their things, setting them out, etc.) and I noticed our guests grabbing up glasses and getting themselves drinks and water, etc. Grrrr. Fortunately the gathering was for close friends and I suppose I should feel good that they felt comfortable enough to get glasses off our shelves and serve themselves. I will have to give Mr Nina remedial drinks lessons.