Lisa's Christmas Party 2006

I thought that her 2005 Christmas party was a real smash. This year Lisa outdid herself by having it at her uncle's gorgeous house. Her directions were excellent, although I followed Mapquest more. The advantae of Mapquest is that it tells me approximately how long the trip should take. Also, it gave me turn-by-turn directions from the office. The party started at 17:30, thirty minutes after I get off work.

When I got to the final street, I could not see the house numbers, so I asked a neighbor where was the house. He gave me excellent directions. I was almost there, but the house was "in the woods." I was unaware of that. As soon as he gave me the directions, he said, "You can turn around in my driveway."

I arrived at the house and was immediately welcomed by everybody. There were three people whom I did not know and I was quickly introduced to them. Later I had some very interesating conversations with Steve, the owner of the house. I also spent a few minutes in front of his fire place.

Everybody but me was Roman Catholic. Lisa, I think, is really Ukranian Catholic. Despite the fact that I was the only non-Catholic, I was very much at home. We capitalized on what we have in common and most of them have a very good understanding of what separate us.

One feature of Lisa's party is an advanced Trivia Pursuit. Last year the questions were quite easy. This year many of them were very difficult, but in many cases, the answer was multiple choice and in some cases there was no wrong answer. I knew the answer to two of the questions strictly because of my Orthodox background.

I met Lisa, Bob, and Mary through the St. Maximos Society when it used to meet in Sheila Prichard's house. Now the group meets at St. Benedict's Roman Catholic Church. Fr. Pascal is the moderator. Later on Saturday morning I went to Howard's for breakfast and there were Lisa, Bob, and Mary, and others. I went over to say hello to them and they asked me to come back on Saturdays to join them for breakfast and I have been doing that on most weeks. Most of those at the party were those who usually attend the breakfast.

Monty and his wife Daria and daughter were also there and with his daughter Emily was her friend Danielle. I remember Danielle from last year's party. Monty works for the library and he speaks Russian. Thus we can share some experiences. I told him about the incident at work when a young black man came to the office and saw my BELIEVE button in Russian and started speaking Russian with me. My boss was shocked. He did not think that any other black person spoke Russian. This was an educational experience for him.

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