Ping Pong in a Winter Wonderland

Well, hello there, fellas. I haven't been around much the past couple of weeks due to a hectic schedule of having to do just about everything but blog. It's okay, I'm back now and I'm really excited to share with you guys the photos from our Ping Pong in a Winter Wonderland party!

I don't really know how I got this idea, but I'm glad it came to me because it turned out perfectly. I started planning it probably 5 weeks ago, and quickly began picking up things here and there to decorate with. In the end, I managed to make my garage into a fairly impressive makeshift wonderland of silver sparkles and white snow.

I spent most of Friday decorating and only managed to get half of it finished. Saturday was spent first cleaning the house, then finishing the garage decor, then finally making some grub for our guests. Well, I made a couple small things, but Jamie brined and baked a turkey. Let me tell you, the turkey was probably the best party food idea ever. He cut it up and one of our friends brought over rolls and cheese to make turkey sandwiches.

Jamie also cut up some kielbasa we had in the freezer and made a barbecue sauce for them to live in until they were eaten, which also was delicious. We offered our usual pepperoni dip, which I've been making for probably ten years now. I double the recipe and it's almost always scraped clean. I think my food favorite of the night, though, was this bloomin' onion pullapart bread that I found on Pinterest.

I should have made two!

Most of the food was completely wiped by the end of the night with only a bit of turkey for Jamie and I to have leftover sandwiches yesterday, so I think the food was a success. Now on to the decor! I was so excited when I finally finished the garage that I instantly put it up on Instagram.

@jamiedana

The party wasn't officially an ugly sweater party, but I tacked "ugly holiday apparel strongly encouraged" onto the end of the invites and ended up very pleased and entertained with the turnout.

Ella is Jewish so she threw in a light up menorah necklace. I bought her the sippy cup since it was the first night of Hanukkah and all. Chris had pieces of leafy garland stuck onto his sweatshirt. It happened to also be the same garland that I have on my rails in my house.

Jeff's sweater house had real Christmas lights on it! I was also very happy with Alexis' tie and their matching hats.

I found this sweatshirt online (Skip n Whistle) for Jamie. When you see it...

I wish Clare had held her red, Christmas tree purse that she had brought! It really completed her outfit. Tim went for a very classy ugly sweater look. Some thought it was kind of like something a Christmas Leprechaun would wear. Whatever it was, it was fantastic.

Chuck's had this sweater in his closet for 4 or 5 years now and just had to wear it on this occasion.

Misty had the Ping Pong Elf look down perfectly.

Mark's shirt says "My grandkids and I were made for each other!"

Renata beat Jamie in ping pong while wearing an obscured by her hair snowman shirt and Mike was impressed in his ugly Christmas graphic tee.

Chuck was so stoked about all the ping pong!

Sometime before Jamie lost at ping pong.

The final match was Wesley against our reigning champ from Cosmic Ping Pong, Jeff.

Jeff won.

And all the balloons and snow made their way inside the house.

And so the party was a success with just over 30 people showing up! And even though we tracked all of the fake snow from the garage all through the house, the mess really wasn't too bad. Though that probably had to do with Jamie's late-night alcohol-fueled after-party cleaning habit. (Thanks, Husband!)

Thanks to everyone who came!

Oh, and I was there, too. "Come at me, bro!"