The day is here...

Tonight is my first time hosting my book club gathering, and the holiday meeting at that. I'm excited about it, but I've also been nervous about it for so long that honestly, I'll be kind of glad when it's all over.

All of these women are my friends, as Gregg keeps reminding me, and there's no need to be stressed out about it, but I've enjoyed their hospitality so many times in the past that I feel like I should do extra. And of course I want to both impress my friends and show them how much I care about them. Hence the menu is a tiny bit.....excessive, maybe? I've spent a good deal of money not to mention the effort that I'm putting in to make sure the food is varied and delicious. The oven part of my stove mysteriously quit working over the weekend, then rose from the dead (a Christmas miracle!) Monday morning, nixing any plans I had to serve homemade cake and cookies. I like to think that the oven knew I needed to go a little easier on myself, and so gave me an excuse to serve store bought sweets! I still managed to make dark chocolate rum balls on Sunday, since you only need to melt chocolate over a burner for those.

The house is clean as a pin. I've worked on that for almost two weeks, deep cleaning from top to bottom. I went out and bought new candles to add to my Christmas decorations, and we hired a guy to come and repair the front glass storm door (it  had been malfunctioning since we moved in) and to add a door to our little half bathroom which had never had one. I want the house to look and be its best tonight. If I'm honest, I'll admit that a big reason is the fact that with only one or two exceptions, these women are all much more financially well off than I am. They all have large, beautiful, beautifully decorated homes. I love our little house and am proud of it, but it's much, much more modest than any of theirs. That's why I want it to be extra clean and well kept and Christmas-sparkley. But....These are your friends my husband would insist. And he's right! It's going to be fine, and we'll have a good time. I'm sure of it. But what a relief it'll be when the last guest leaves tonight!

I took a personal day off work today to finish everything up at a leisurely pace. That being said, if I don't finish my coffee and get off the computer, I'll be in trouble. So off I go! I'll share some party photos in a few days if all goes well. Wish me luck!