George Michael? Of course not. I’ll never get sick of that track.
You don’t participate in Whamagetton, I take it.
the feathered fans intrigue me…was there some sort of vegas show thing? burlesque? vaudeville?
I have no idea! I’m waiting for videos to surface.
You guys, this isn’t even the weirdest one I’ve ever been to.
No goats this time?
No, but they strongly encouraged us to dress up as clowns.
Then when you nod carefully while backing away slowly.
Okay, this party just took a turn. The guests were asked to resemble clowns?!? Not clown entertainers?
I gathered the “clown party” was a previous event, not the most recent one.
Yeah, clowns were a previous party. There were contortionists and unicyclers and they rolled out basically like a giant wardrobe of clown paraphernalia and instructed everyone to dig in. And a lot of people did. We talked about that one for a long time.
Quite the in laws there.
Fortunately my husband was raised by two sane-ish people. Sort of. Hmm, let me put it this way. Out of all the grandkids, he got the best parents. This is admittedly damning with faint praise. They like to say that my husband got the best parts of both of them and I think it’s absolutely true. I love both of them and they love us and that’s more than I can say for my own parents.
Awww, man, I wish I was invited to that party. 
Eh, I think finding a good parking spot in Derry is a pain.
I think everyone here would join me in presenting you with a Get-Out-Of-Parties card.
Even going to one party a year (quiet holiday “do” at the Dean’s house), I could take it for about a half hour. Then I’d wander to an abandoned part of the house and find a bookcase with something more interesting.
My wife wouldn’t even do that. She just raised a cynical eyebrow when I asked her if she wanted to come.
I’m super crunchy. Lots of native plants, compost, etc. etc.
Every year people bitch about leaf blowers and people not saving every fucking leaf for the insects. I swear to fucking god, these people must only have one tree.
We have 2 giant oaks, 4 big maples, 12 smaller trees. We leave what we can! We can’t leave every leaf. I feel like I’m wandering into tongue twister territory here.
“Convivophobia” is often listed as a “fear of parties”. It’s not an official diagnosis, as it’s really just a term to describe a narrow form of social anxiety disorder, but you can absolutely look up the term on Google and find stuff written about it as if it’s a legitimate phobia, so just tell people you suffer from it and for your own mental health you are not allowed to attend them.
I do actually have social anxiety disorder, which the cousins are at least aware of and cool about, but this family is so big it’s hard to do anything with them without some kind of party happening. I already attend all the kids’ birthday parties and my husband insists on having something for our son every year. A lot of the pressure comes from him, honestly. If I don’t go and he goes, he has to wrangle the kid on his own and doesn’t get to talk to his family.
This recent event was pretty much mandatory. The only people who got out of it lived in other states. It’s been a long time since they’ve done professional family photos so to miss that would be seen as an insult. Even my husband was stressed about getting the photos perfect and he rarely sweats any event. He was most stressed about the giant group shot - 55 people,12 small children, but we came through that one faster than expected. The photographers were exceptional. They were great with my son, too.
Some parties I can get out of, some I really can’t. I’m mostly resigned to make the best of it. It’s not their fault there are so many of them, is it?
Next up is the annual family Christmas party which combines all three grand matriarchs and their families. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the flu.
Just start licking doorknobs, only way to be sure!
Take public transit, hang out in a doctor’s office or pharmacy, find a reason to be around groups of young kids….
I teach a children’s class at church, and as much as I love kids, one downside is that I catch just about everything making the rounds. Kids are great, but they’re little germ factories.