Hi Robin!
I used your website for most of the ideas for my party, which I held on Sat.
night, Dec. 9th 2006. This was my first cookie exchange and I was SO excited.
I used Evite invites and everyone thought that was a fun way to invite. I
invited 9 girls and 6 showed up (one girl wasn't there yet for photo time
- taken before my husband was kicked out of our house and sent to my friend
Cheryl's to hang with her husband Doug).
I am the brunette in the white shirt in the middle. My Evites said the party
was from 6:30 - 8:30. However, we ended up going until 12:30 am!! I bought
lots of red and white decorations and tableware. The first thing we did was
serve up the drinks. I had wine, sodas, and pitchers of red (cosmos) and
green (apple martinis) drinks. Then we went into the living room and visited
and the first ice breaker we did was the explaining of "WHY" we made the
cookies that we did. That was fun and I heard a few horror stories. We handed
out candy canes with pretty, shiny green and red ribbons and played the 'You
can't say cookie' game. Of course I was the first to lose mine! That was
great fun.
We then took a break from games and had snacks. I served taco dip, cocktail
meatballs, carrots and ranch dip, shrimp cocktail, and asiago cheese/sundried
tomato hot spread for baguettes. More drinks as well!
We then proceeded to the 'left right' game with the $5 gifts we all brought
to swap. It was hilarious, especially when we all ended up with our OWN PRESENTS!
We said, "Oh well, just pass them to the person on your right!".
Then it was more visiting and we moved on to the cookies!
I had the cookies on my dining table. We all just took a few from each person's
stash until they were gone! That was actually one of my favorite parts of
my party. After that, it was more visiting until the last guests left at
12:30. I did hand out 'gift bags' to the girls, which were Christmas mugs
with a wrapped Santa figurine inside. Also I had prizes for our games: Christmas
socks from Kohl's and a Snowman candy dish, and a Santa spoon rest.
I had a blast and I want to do this again next year.
Thanks!
Missy C., Wisconsin
