Acceptable in the 80s...

Carnage, cocktails and costumes - the three Cs of a successful party! I feel surprisingly fine today. Maybe it's because we've only just finished clearing up the residual crap so have had something else to concentrate on all day - or maybe it's down to the fact that I gave up on the Del Boy cocktails and started drinking the non-alcoholic plain pineapple juice when it all became too much round about 11:30pm when the 80s dancing competition ended? Hmmm. Anyway, it was like, so totally awesome.

Fashion Wheel, Kerplunk, Spirograph, Screwball
Scramble, Operation, cocktail umbrellas, armbands,
neon...how many 80s relics do you remember?

Everybody made the effort to dress up which was brilliant. Neon Barbie and Ken (matching sun visors and vests!), Madonna (more bracelets and lace than you could shake a stick at), The Hoff (with curly wig, chest hair, leathers and orange skin), Alex Drake (Ashes to Ashes), the 1984 LA Olympics, many generic 80s costumes in varying neon colours featuring legwarmers and awful make-up - and we had two iconic 80s doctors in our presence - Ghostbuster Dr. Egon Spengler and Doc Emmett Brown, to bring a bit of science to the proceedings. Egon's proton pack was made from a cereal box wrapped in a bin liner with a vacuum hose poking out of it. Genius.

All you need for a DIY 80s party:

Food
Anything full of sugar, colourings, and leftover from primary school birthday parties - fairy cakes and crispy cakes, crisps (Space Invaders and Monster Munch), party rings, jammie dodgers, rocket lollies, pickled onions and cheese on sticks. I topped it off with a Mr. Men birthday cake.

Cocktails
'Del Boys' - pineapple and coconut juice, Malibu and pineapple slices (from a can of course). 'Club Tropicanas' - orange and mango juice, peach schnapps and lemonade. Decorate both to the hilt with mini umbrellas, those plastic monkeys, glittery streamers on sticks and fruit in the glass.

Music
My crap 80s iPod playlist came in VERY handy. Gather up as much electro-pop and synth as you can. Think Wham!, Cyndi Lauper, MJ, The Boss, A-ha, Kylie, one hit wonders plus film soundtracks. And make sure you have an 80s dancing competition.

Costumes
Several people picked an 80s character or icon, but most dressed in general 80s attire. Armbands, legwarmers, off-the-shoulder tops, big hair, crimped hair, lace, bangles, stilettos, and - would you believe it - as much neon as you could possibly wear.

Games
We all raided our garages to procure such relics as Fashion Wheel (still with its original coloured pencils!), Operation, Rubik's cubes, Kerplunk, Spirograph and Screwball Scramble. I also found a bag of Trolls. The drunken Kerplunk tournament was a particular highlight, however.

Decorations
Afore-mentioned bag of trolls came in handy to decorate the room. As did streamers and balloons in as garish-as-possible colours, luminous table confetti, Barbies, My Little Pony, (I think someone may have brought a Care Bear?) and just general neon-ness.

Dude. It was like, so totally tubular.

Our survey said...

Last night turned out to be a success in the end. No hitches with the Chinese food (thankfully, after the cooking week from hell), seven happy people and not an exploding spring roll in sight. Except, apparently my cocktails (Gatsbys) were a wee bit too lethal for some. My friend S texted me today to say she is never drinking them ever again. I can only hope she managed to keep her head out of the loo long enough to salvage some of her Sunday. (S: What was in those bloody cocktails? Me: Southern Comfort, ginger and lime. S: Southern Comfort? Southern Hell! Me: Oops.) Oh dear.

Actually, it was probably the fault of the toxic cocktails that we all started playing a very merry version of Family Fortunes (with buzzers, 'our survey said' sound effects and everything - it was most exciting for a bunch of sozzled individuals). It's always the way when you've had a drink - even innocent games become innuendo laden. This was no exception. The air was positively blue. Even more so since we were in the presence of The Man Who Can Make Anything Into a Double Entendre. My Other Half took up the role of game show host/Les Dennis for the evening and even he struggled to keep his composure as the answers just kept getting worse and worse. This was a very tame one before the second pitcher of Gatsbys made an appearance:

Les Dennis: "Name something you might find in a church."
Team A: "Love beads!"
Team B: "A threesome!"

And it got slowly worse.

Anyhoo. For no apparent reason, the night then progressed into what can only be described as a gurning competition. You can imagine those pictures, I'm sure. Our living room was taken over by a herd of insanely grinning, cross-eyed, elasticated-mouthed lunatics. And on almost every photo, my face is apparently made of rubber and I look like the second cousin of Jim Carrey on day release from a mental ward . I really must work on that.

It's not worth crying over spilt vino...

Remind me never to play board games whilst tipsy with my equally inebriated Other Half ever again. He's just far too competitive. I mean, honestly. It was only Cranium - not exactly high pressured. (Have you ever played Cranium? It's ace. Like 4 games in one.) And certainly not worth going in a strop and throwing a prop from the game - a ball of purple plasterciney play dough stuff used in a clay form of Pictionary - at me mid-sulk. Except he didn't aim properly. Oh no. The stuff missed me and knocked my wine off the table. Luckily my hand-eye coordination is better than his, and I caught the glass. Tsk.

My Facebook graffiti of the Incident. The Other Half was not impressed.

Anyway, apart from that, last night was tres amusant. A wee gathering of chums to celebrate our pal S returning from the Big Smoke. It was supposed to be themed (her idea) and that theme was Italian food (again, her idea. But a crowd-pleaser, nonetheless) and everyone had to bring something. As people arrived, our table became laden with an entertaining mix of garlic dough balls, spinach ravioli, mini tiramisus, teddy bear shaped pasta and more pizzas than in Rome. Therefore this turned into a Pizza Party. And a good time was had by all. Until the flying plastercine incident, that is.

Boys. Honestly.

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Hello all, hope everyone had a fantabulous Christmas and Boxing Day and that Santa has been good to you. (I must say he was very good to me and brought me all manner of domestic goddessy things - cookbooks, foodie things, and a matching apron and oven glove set which is 1950s meets 1980s - black with bright multicoloured polka dots - so very me!) We've had a hectic one - visiting his folks' for Christmas lunch, mine for the evening, and all manner of family in between. Today, The Other Half and I finally caught our breath at home and did the dishes...from Christmas Eve. We appalled even ourselves. Every glass vessel in the house (including some bowls and a vase) had been utilised. Still, a good night was had by all.

It's becoming a sort-of tradition (in that this is only the second time it happened) that we play host to our friends for a bring-a-bottle-games-and-nibbles night on Christmas Eve. Last year, the old roulette wheel and casino table had an airing and the nibbles consisted of anything I could knock up from our only- recently-moved-into kitchen cupboards which were a bit bare, to say the least. Anyway, this year we had a bit more preparation time. I finished work on 23rd (until 5th Jan - whoop!) and we both spent Christmas Eve getting the house ready and rustling up some grub for 11 hungry people. (Recipes to the right and down a bit - the dolmades and canapes in particular went down a treat.)

Well, the Christmas tunes were on loop; drink flowed and the food was polished off; The Other Half spilt his thumb open on an exploded can and spent the night with a comedy cartoon-eqsue bandage adorning said digit; but the hysterics really started when game time began. We played giant pictionary in 'Win, Lose or Draw' girls-vs-boys stylee on a flip chart someone (who will remain nameless) pilfered from work, and had to contend drawing such anomalies as 'God' (you try drawing a 'concept'), 'Guam', 'Tipperary', 'Stephen Fry' and 'Vincent Van Gogh'. (Friend C who had to draw Van Gogh was very good actually - his team were just rubbish and didn't guess in time. He'd drawn the Sunflowers on an easel, and a one-eared man with a pair of scissors and everything. His team were baffled and the guesses included 'Spock' and 'Willy Wonka'. I don't have a clue why, either.)

Here's hoping next Christmas Eve is just as fun. Ideas for games on a postcard, please!

A collage completed by everyone at the end of the evening.
I can't quite remember exactly why Rudolph is being rogered
by Santa; but I'm sure there's a logical explanation.