Peace

Well, I can imagine you've all been so excited to see pictures of the funeral home party. Let me preface the loads of pictures that will follow with this statement: The party was neat-o, groovy, far-out, cool, awesome, radical, rockin', bomb, and pretty much any other over-used slang term of any given decade that would be synonymous with those I just listed.

So sit back, relax, and travel back in time (sort of) as you see and read about our celebration of the last 60 years.

Here's our meal/food, backwards.... Representing 2000s, the health-food era, was salad. We also had bacon bits and cheese along with all those dressings. They just weren't put out at this point. Representing the 1990s were Subway sandwiches. We all remember the Subway craze for sure, and though Jared came along early in the 2000s, Subway had pretty much hit its stride in the 90s. We didn't have Subway in Panama, so this was quite a treat when we were state-side during vacations.
In the 1980s, junk food reigned. I mean, sure.... There was junk food before. But in the 1980s, so many varieties came into existence. We're talking cheetos, fritos, doritos, cheeseballs, cheese puffs, pop rocks, fun dip, Big League chew, Razzles... The list could go on. And so we decided a goody bag would be the way to go, with samples of several things from back in the day (but mostly from the 80s). So below you can see the contents of our 1980s (plus) goody bags, which included a disco-ball necklace (70s, I know -- but I got 8 for a $1 at the Dollar Tree!) and glow-in-the dark shutter shades :). We were going to add a bag of individual chips, but that didn't end up happening. Even so, I think we collected some awesome stuff for the bags.
I'm sure you're all stumped as to what the 1970s featured, right? Nah, probably not. Everyone has pretty much heard of fondue. (And if you've ever watched Everybody Loves Raymond, you're even familiar with "fondue fun night.") So yep, we fondued. And it was fun! I have a fondue pot that was given to me by Pat who used to work at Troy. Such a sweet lady. I think of her every time I see the fondue pot or the plastic traveling cake holder, which she also gave me. But we couldn't stop with only one fondue... And we managed to track down a second (authentic 70s) fondue pot! So we had our chocolate fondue and our cheese fondue. The people who signed up for fruit to dip didn't end up showing up, which was a bummer, but we made do with strawberries :). Here's what I did learn about fondue, though.... I'm pretty sure I figured out why fondue went out of style. It's because cleaning those pots afterward is horrible. They just end up with a big glob of well-burned whatever-was-in-the-pot right over where the flame was hitting. Ick. And while it wasn't so bad with my stainless steel pot (steel wool, baby, steel wool), we certainly didn't want to scratch up the nice white-painted inside of the authentic fondue pot which wasn't even ours! So that one took some effort. But it was all worth it, and it was fun to try some fondue-ing with our party.
Our main dish came from the 1960s. It was a time of ease and simplicity. A time when women were mostly still at home and didn't want to make a bunch of food from scratch anymore. I mean, shoot... We had to clean the whole house and look pretty for when the husband came home, right? So why waste time on food? Enter the TV dinner. In a foil tray, I might add. But try to find those hanging around in a grocery store!!! So that was what inspired our main dish. We found some divided trays that were squarish/rectangularish. And we bought KFC fried chicken, and my mom made Salisbury Steaks, and mashed potatoes (not pictured). And let me tell you... It was delicious. My mom makes awesome food, though. Like, always.
And we can't forget the 1950s. Back in that time, going to the diner or the soda shoppe was all the rage. And so we featured the soda shoppe beverages for our drinks. We had tons of soda (as you can clearly see) and cherry syrup, vanilla syrup, and vanilla ice cream for root beer and creamsicle floats. Yum! And so much fun. I think most people opted for Root Beer floats. I went orange creamsicle at first and cherry Pepsi second (which resulted in not being able to sleep that night, since caffeine has a serious effect on me these days -- I think I'm getting old...).
And now the moment you've been waiting for.... The picture of the people. Some of us didn't dress up. But some of us did. I got my outfit from a thrift store here, and I got it about a year and a half ago, probably off the Halloween rack. So without further ado... Here are me and Rebecca (who went "Physical" style while I went hippie-style):
And here's everyone who attended. You can see several people dressed up in this one. We had quite an awesome turnout! Including the 4 kids who were there, we had a total of 24.
Me and Rebecca, who refuses to make a normal face in pictures according to her. I braided my headband and got the glasses (which you can see I forgot to take the sticker off of) at Party City for like $1.50.
Here are me and Bob, representing the early 60s (him) and the late psychedelic 60s (me):
I had made up a game of Decades Bingo. Prizes for winning included a box of Charleston Chews, a box of Hubba Bubba bubble gum, a mini-rubix cube, a friendship bracelet kit, a lanyard keychain kit, and a slinky.
I have a friend who, when she saw this on facebook, said she is guilty of 19 of these. Me? I'm guilty of 12 of them. And if you want to know which ones... been to a drive-in movie, worn leg-warmers, know who died in Seattle on April 8, 1994, can dance the chicken dance, have roller-skated, have eaten all fondue meal, walked around in spandex shorts, owned a trapper keeper, owned a walkman, know what the first video ever played on MTV was, have used a rotary phone, and have worn jelly shoes ;). So, give it a whirl and see how many you have done! (And leave it in the comments if you want). There were a lot of other BINGO cards, and some of them had other stuff also, like if you remember tan m&ms or ever went to a sock-hop. It was just fun and gave us a chance to learn something new about people. And sometimes those things we learned were shocking and hilarious! For example, one person I never would have dreamed would watch such a thing has watched "Beavis and Butthead." And it was funny who ended up winning first, and the fact that he had (and still has) a Cabbage Patch doll is one of the reasons he won!

We also played a game that Pam and Vicky developed. It was THE PRICE IS RIGHT DECADES STYLE! And it was so awesome! They found all sorts of retro stuff and found facts about those items. Then we had to try to guess how much it cost when it was first introduced. Whoever got closest without going over would win the item. I ended up winning the throwback Pepsi. But there was also Coke, mountain dew, Yoohoo, Zots candy, pop rocks, Cap'n Crunch cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, and a ton of other goodies. This game was a hit, and they did a great job preparing it!
I forgot to take a picture of my "TV dinner" (my tray full of food). So I remembered after I'd scarfed everything down :(. So I decided to just take a picture of the empty tray so you could see that we did actually use divided trays!
So here are me and my mom. And Barry Manilow. Hahaha... While looking for my fondue pot in the garage (which was miraculously easy to find!), we also came across some of my mom's old records. And so we took some in for display. Anyway, my mom made a poodle skirt and an initial shirt, plus she wore bobby socks. And we wore our shutter shades for this picture.
We took one last picture of everyone who dressed up (minus our boss who had to leave early to see a family). I think everyone who dressed up did a really great job, and really, quite a few of us got into the fun!
And here is the fabulous funeral home party committee! Rebecca, me, Pam, and Deb (also known as Mom).
It was a fabulous time, and proof that we can party like it's 1999 (and 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, and 2009) :).

So there you have it. Hope you enjoyed the party read. We already have our next "party" in the works. Because we love it.

Updates and happenings of The Nilla Life will come in a later post.