book club Christmas/birthday edition

I hosted book club on Thursday night -- I hadn't seen anyone in book club except for Jill since before we left for Paris, so I was really excited for this get-together. In addition, it was a joint celebration of Jenn's birthday and our traditional Christmas book/gift exchange. SO fun!

I left my Christmas tree up so we could put all the gifts underneath. It's always so fun to see this many gifts and know that they are all for us!

But first, dinner. {photo by Jill}

Amy made beef and carrot stew, Jill made fabulous sage and rosemary mashed potatoes, I made bread, Jana made salad, and Collette brought crackers with cream cheese and jalapeno pepper jelly and chocolate truffles. Oh, and we had homemade grape juice. It was quite a feast!

We got caught up with each other during dinner, and then Collette announced that her gift to us was a getaway! We picked a date (which happens to be her birthday weekend) and we will be going to stay at a hotel together -- ooh la la, what a luxury!

Jill took this picture of us all opening gifts.

Here, they are opening mine: a stack of books ornament that I have been saving since just after Christmas last year (!) and a scarf from Paris, each one different. I hope I chose well for everyone. I love giving gifts!

The motherlode: Jenn sewed us all monogrammed book club bags with notebooks inside for taking book club minutes (i.e. a record of all the hilarious things that are said, mostly by Jana). Jana gave us fancy hair products that smell wonderful. Jill gave us a framed book club self-portrait with a great quote. Oops! I forgot to include in the picture the cute container of homemade divinity and caramels from Jenn, yum.

Jill gave to me for the book exchange this year and she gave me Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, a book by an author I enjoy and one I have not yet read! She also made a darling "we were in Paris!" bookmark, 2nd edition. (I am still using the first one.)

Close-up of Jill's gift -- I was SO relieved to see that it wasn't the group photo taken at my baby shower when I was oh-so-great with child!

Jenn was doing a little final stitching on our bags while we discussed The Hunger Games. (Her scarf was the only one I knew without a doubt was the right choice! And her reaction was gratifying indeed.)

We all really enjoyed the book, although I think I loved it slightly less than the others, only because I had seen the Japanese movie Battle Royale, which has essentially the same premise. Because the idea was not fresh to me, it wasn't as exciting. Still, it was a page-turner and I read it in two days easily.

I made my grandma's Best Fudge Cake (a.k.a. Ding Dong cake). Man, I had forgotten how delicious that cake is -- it is SO good. Eva helped me to assemble it and was crushed that she couldn't have a piece on Thursday afternoon. I assuaged her devastation by promising she could have a slice for breakfast on Friday. Ha! Cake for breakfast, a pretty good piece of bribery, eh?

We chose books for the first half of 2010 as well. I seriously did not think we could get through Jenn's birthday dinner, our book exchange, our Christmas exchange, book discussion and book selection all in one night, but we did it! And a very fun night it was.