I Suck At Celebrating My Friend's Birthday

My friends (Cass and Ellen) organized a little get-together for today. The reason for the get-together: to hang out, have fun, celebrate birthdays and have our silly holiday present swap.

Ellen's birthday is the day before my birthday. Unfortunately, I suck at celebrating my friend's birthday. Of course, with the added bonus of the holidays, celebrating a birthday in the month of December is always difficult to do. Thus, Cass and Ellen organized a gathering for after Christmas/Annamas.

Needless to say, today was a blast. We got to hang out, eat great food, and just have fun. I suppose a special thanks should go out to Cass's employer as they apparently provided a lot of the food that was there today. Most notable was the apple crisp (with cranberries) from the Milk Street Cafe. (Cue Rachael Ray's "Yum-O" sound.) The apple crisp was delicious. I could have eaten the whole tray... and almost did.

Anyway, joining in on the festivities today (besides Cass, Ellen, Karen and myself) were my friends (Marc, Kelley, Garv, and Leeann). And to everyone, thank you again for your generous presents. I was pleasantly surprised with everything. I am also looking forward now to March 12th, which is the date the Boston Celtics will be playing against the Indiana Pacers. I can't wait to attend.

Amid the birthday celebrations was talk about the fantasy football season. After all, today was Sunday... the day of professional football. It was a little comical because Cass and Ellen were in the playoff hunt. So they were checking the status of their respective teams. As of right now, things weren't looking too good for Ellen's fantasy team.

During halftime of the New England Patriots football game, we decided to have our "silly swap". In years past, all of us used to do a Secret Santa swap whereby we would each draw the name of someone in our group and purchase a present for them. For the most part, the Secret Santa was fun. There were, however, a couple of years where things weren't so fun... through no fault of our own of course.

A few years ago, we decided to switch things up and just have what has become known as a "silly swap", which is basically a Yankee swap of silly gifts and items (whether the items were gifts that were received and unused, things lying around the house, or whatever). In my opinion, I think the "silly swap" has been very enjoyable. I actually think we should have silly types of swaps with our other circles of friends.

From a purely green point of view, having a silly swap with our friends cuts down on waste because things are being reused. Plus, having the swap would also remove the need to remember if a specific present needs to be given to so-and-so. And realistically, after a certain point, there really aren't any secular "things" that I would personally want to receive. As you can probably tell, I am very much into pushing the idea of a "silly swap" to everyone.

I think last year, we had skipped the "silly swap". Last year, neither Karen nor I were much into the holiday spirit with the passing of our son (Braden). This year, however, the swap was brought back and I'm glad it was. The swap just made celebrating the holidays that much more enjoyable this year.

For me, I enjoyed watching Leeann open her present. She had unwrapped her gift and then pulled out the contents of the box. She then immediately burst out laughing because the contents of the box was a black and white shirtless Ryan Reynolds photo... in a South Shore YMCA picture frame. Just watching her crack up had me laughing. (Of course, it helped that Karen and I brought that silly present.)

The other silly present that Karen and I brought also had everyone laughing pretty hard. The present was also another picture frame, with a little heart on it. Within the frame itself was the following:

(The picture below is of Garv and his infatuation: Taylor Swift.)


Needless to say, Garv enjoyed the picture. Garv ended up with the picture after trading with Cass. (Although... it would have been more comical had someone else kept the picture for themselves.) All in all, the silly swap was just pure and simple fun. I am, however, curious as to where Garv will place the picture. We recommended that he put the picture at Blue-22, but he wasn't too keen on that idea.

Following the silly swap and some more football, we then decided to play a game. In fact, the game was the same game that we had played on Black Friday: "The Game of Things". The premise of the game is to determine who responded to a certain "thing" (like "Things you shouldn't do at a..."). Of course, with our group of friends, the responses degenerated to sharts, Ryan Reynolds, and a combination of both the last time around.

This time around, things were still pretty comical. In fact, sharts were a recurring theme... as was Ryan Reynolds... and Taylor Swift... and the combination of all three. Needless to say, the responses were absolutely brilliant. The game was quite enjoyable. Of course, I was pretty inept at the game... due to my horrid memory of responses. The game was fun nonetheless.

Anyway, I had an absolute blast today. Just hanging out with everyone and laughing our butts off was pure genius.