Holiday Festivities At Rainbow's End

For the Christmas Eve party at Rainbow's End, we were told, "bring a $10 gift, finger food, a pencil, paper, a pin, scissors, tape, and paper." Later it became apparent that confusion reigned -- the person giving those instructions had a Texas accent, and no one was sure if the "pin" was the kind you stick into a cushion, or a "pen" that you sign a check with. A clarification was then made -- we should bring a "rotten pen." Silence descended quickly as we all tried to parse this into something that made sense and actually reduced the confusion. Oh!!! We all got it. A "writing pen"! OK, then!

Christmas Eve arrived, and everyone showed up in their holiday finest. Now for RVers here in Texas, that may be a snowman sweater with blue jeans, sporty reindeer ears, or a Santa hat perched on top of a cowboy hat -- or nothing more than normal attire. Everyone was, however, chatty and festive, and we played a few paper and pencil games and socialized as people kept arriving.

Once everyone was there, we found out why we had scissors and tape. We divided into teams and moved to rooms that had been set up with wrapping paper, bows and other decorations. We had 20 minutes to "dress" one member of our team any way we liked. We wound up dressing Donna in a "bikini" and headdress. As she came out, I sang Mele Kalikimaka. Let me repeat that. I sang Mele Kalikimaka, with a mike, to an audience. Halfway through I realized I should be petrified, but I found I didn't really care how it sounded. People were, of course, paying more attention to Donna in a wrapping paper bikini and a "Madonna" bra made of foam drinking cups than they were to my singing, so that kind of took the pressure off! We then played a holiday-themed memory game, and a game of Holiday Musical Chairs.

Finally, Santa arrived! He had everyone get in a large circle holding their $10 gift. He then read The Night Before Christmas, slightly altered with the words "right" and "left" added here and there. Each time "right" or "left" was read, we passed the gift in our hands in that direction. It got very confusing and turned out to be a lot of fun.

On Christmas Day, we again got together for dinner. Below is a picture of most of those at the Single's Table (Donna is missing -- she was out searching for Lemon Pie). After dinner, some of us hung around for a rousing game of Mexican Train (I know it sounds vaguely risque, but it really is a domino game). It was a fun way to spend Christmas!