We had our ‘Welcome to the world’ party (in lieu of a Christening) for R and G yesterday. Approximately 25 friends and family came round for an afternoon barbeque and drinks and a good time was had by all.

I don’t know why, but whenever we have a party (pre girls we used to have lots and our annual Christmas bash was mildly legendary) I have this horrible fear that creeps up on me about three days before and only abates when I hear the first knock on the door, that no-one is going to turn up and we’ll just be standing there for hours surrounded by mountains of food and drink, sad music playing in the background. This never happens. When will I learn?

R and G were absolute stars, although they were so excited by all the people, attention and fuss that they absolutely refused to have their afternoon nap and were pretty grumpy by bedtime. They look gorgeous in their little dresses and shoes and I took tons of photos. Everyone wanted to hold them and play with them (although curiously I still ended up doing all the nappy changes!) and it was great to catch up with people we hadn’t seen for ages.

I think a true measure of a good party is that food and drinks start to run out. We bought loads of everything but ran out of beer and burger buns and there was almost a crisis with the tomato ketchup (yes, that’s its proper name, not “red sauce”, grr!!!) until I found a new bottle in the cupboard. However, I find with parties that some things you lose and some you gain because we bought six bottles of wine for the party and there are now about 10 in the kitchen so that’ll keep us going for a little while….or about a month depending on how things go!
I can’t imagine that a Christening would have been as much fun. It would have been such a faff finding a church, getting everyone there and then back to our house and food. Hosting the whole thing ourselves was hard work but it meant that everyone came to us and it was really informal and relaxed. People mingled and chatted, new boyfriends were vetted (and heartily approved of) and gossip was exchanged. All that coupled with the very pleasant weather made for a lovely afternoon.

The very best thing about daytime parties is that we were able to go to bed at 9pm after seeing the last guests off and clearing up – bliss!