Tacky X-mas Party

This year, we decided to do a little something different for our Storm Squad Christmas party. We hosted our party at Kanki Japanese Steakhouse rather than having it at one of our houses (most likely Courtney's house).  The reason for this switch up was because it can get so crazy around the holidays and not one weekend seemed to work out where we could throw such an elaborate/over the night get together.  It was hard throwing it at a restaurant though because you are on their schedule. Although we reserved a room, they weren't very respectful of the time and people were getting very hungry!  I would only ever suggest throwing it at a Japanese Steakhouse if you can make the room completely private (which is what we thought we were getting..oh well!).

Tacky Christmas Hostesses
Courtney, Catherine, Kimberly, Allison

The first thing we had everyone do once they sat down was fill out who should win the tackiest Christmas sweater on these cute ballot cards that Allison made. One side was a vibrant turquoise and the other side was a zebra print on felt scrapbook paper...I almost didn't want to write on it and ruin it! Courtney created a ballot box made from an old tacky sweater and a shoe box...totally perfect for our theme! After everyone had voted, we tallied up the ballots and although it was a very close race between the bossman Jon and Ashley Virginia, the lady in pink won! Allison also created a little gift for the winner filled with Christmas goodies, an iTune card and other misc. items. There is a lot going on in the picture to the left...Courtney just revealed the winner, Jon is upset he didn't win and is whipping his napkin at Courtney, AV is excited she just won, the others at the table are laughing and clapping and the table behind us is probably thinking we are all a little off our rocker.

AV - Tackiest
sweater winner!

While people were sitting and hanging out, we had these theme appropriate picture frames on every table. We googled "tacky sweaters" and "awkward family Christmas photos" and printed off quite interesting photos which definitely got a good laugh and added a personal touch to our very customary seating arrangements.

Catherine made the most interesting photo props for the party...Mustaches and Santa beards with mustaches and kissy lips. So simple and so cute! She used the wide popsicle sticks, cut out mustaches and beards from paper, glued cotton balls onto the beard template and glued mustaches on top of some of the beards and kissy lips on the others!

Kim and Courtney made the party favors for everyone to take home that evening. The base of the martini glass was dipped in chalkboard paint and had everyone's name from the party written on the bottom. Different designs were created with glue on the clear glass ornaments bought from AC More. We then dumped silver glitter on top of the glue and let it dry over night before placing a red feather into each ornament. The ornaments sat in the martini glass and were wrapped beautifully in cellophane with red and green ribbon!

This is the majority of our promotions team looking fabulous with our beards and mustaches! We are also standing in front of a box of donated toys which we all brought to the dinner party in order to donate to the Carolina Hurricanes toy drive. With the box overflowing with gifts to give, I can only imagine the smiles that were put on some of the kids faces upon receiving them! Thank you to all those who helped, all those who donated, and all of those who came out to celebrate our tacky Christmas with us!

\