There are so many reasons to celebrate – of course if you listen to the news or read it online you might wonder whether you should party hard or not. How confusing! “…the national debt is skyrocketing …mortgage rates are at all time lows…unrest in the Middle East continues….President O’Bama announces troop withdrawl in Afghanistan…the polar ice cap is melting…scientists have cloned a sheep…and on and on and on and on.
I have a better idea! Let’s just celebrate!!! I found this vintage Hors D’oeuvre cookbook from 1981, written by two women from Santa Maria, CA. The title caught my eye, Company’s Coming. I thumbed through it and fairly quickly determined there was hardly a recipe in there that I might make. But then I noticed the first chapter was titled Planning It and as I began to read I found myself smiling and nodding – this is great!
To quote the authors; ” We believe in entertaining 52 weeks of the year with a few days off in between for getting back into shape, working, and planning the next party…” “Our motto – ‘Any excuse for a party is a good one’ – is demonstrated by the following list of ideas for giving an hors d’oeuvre party’ .”
According to my calculations we are in the 9th week of the year. The cookbook lists a reason for celebrating each week and as I read through the list, I realized a couple of holidays and celebrations have been moved around. For instance, Super Bowl Sunday now takes place in February and not January and the Oscars have been pushed back too. However, I would like to keep to their schedule so if along the way you notice the dates are off a bit you’ll know why.
Here are their first 9 weeks of ideas and hey, the way I look at it, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t play catch-up!
- WACKO – (Willey’s Annual Convention of Krackpots in Orcutt) – Happy New Year!
- NEW YEAR’S DAY – Recovered from last night in time to watch parade and get our second wind for the Bowl games.
- BREAKING NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS – Ours never last any longer than this.
- P.O.P. – “Pity Old Pop” for now he has to figure out how to pay all those holiday bills.
- SUPERBOWL – We decorate the house with our favorite team’s colors
- HOBO – Since we are so poor, we eat out of tin cans and drink from Mason jars. Dressing the part is always fun.
- GROUND HOG DAY – Whether we see our shadows or not, it’s another excuse to party.
- PRESIDENTS – Everyone gets in the act. We come as our favorite President or First Lady and try to guess who’s who.
- VALENTINE’S DAY – It’s a real romantic night…Keep an eye on your spouse!
- 50’S – Dust off the old 45’s and your records too!
So now you have many reasons to celebrate and as you can see, the party doesn’t have to be BIG, or elaborate – maybe just another couple or a few friends over. Time to put JOY back in our lives – CELEBRATE!
The 50’s will be easy for me – I might just rock and roll to a few tunes with Peter in our living room. And those of you who know us, know that we definitely have the 45’s and the record player aka turntable to play them on. Probably also those clever little yellow discs.
45 RPM Record Disks
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
I didn’t know “O’Bama” was Irish!! LOL! Love those little yellow discs. You can even buy one and wear it as a pendant! Check this out! http://www.angelswhim.com/45rpm.htm
Such a throwback to when we had all those 45’s and used to save coupons from the record store to get a free record!
Free record!? cool, never had that offer.