The Sandbar Lawrence employees (and some former employees...and some friends....and other random assorted folks) gathered at the bar last night for our annual gift exchange.
Our Christmas party has become so big with the Ottawa and Baldwin City folks that it's hard to have a gift exchange with so many people. We tried one year and it ended up just being very confusing, because wiwth 30 people participating no one could remember who opened what gift or what they wanted to steal. And it took hours.
Last night had a good turnout of perfectly normal packages, some risque presents, and some truly hideous white elephant gifts.
For example:
the stone gorilla yard ornament that Heather wouldn't part with (it even went to the restroom with her);
the Mizzou mug that no one would admit to bringing;
a ceramic smiling snowman cookie jar;
a jug of generic bleach, keeping with last year's laundry gift;
a bottle of wine;
a kid's set of Nerf shooting dart things;
the whole collection of 1994 Playboy magazines.
Nobody knows who brought most of the gifts. It's probably best that way. It was fun to see everyone fighting over things, mainly the magazines, the liquor, and a truly obnoxious black tuxedo man-thong thing that you had to be present in order to fully appreciate.
A tradition that started last year is finding a movie that makes fun of our friend Tyler, and then Photoshopping his picture onto the cover of the DVD. This year we used "The Ringer," but it wasn't as funny because he hadn't seen the movie and really had no idea what the joke was. Next year we're going to expand this game to make fun of more people besides Tyler. He's been picked on enough, only because it's easy.
Several of the attendees showed up in their favorite Christmas attire. They dug through mom's attic and grandma's closets and found the best (or worst?) holiday clothing ever. It was pretty funny. If only mom knew what her old sweaters were really being used for...
And to whomever brought the Hpnotiq gift set....thank you, thank you, thank you. It will be put to good use.
