The Things We Spend the Most Effort Doing

I hosted a Christmas party yesterday for some of my colleagues, as a way to thank them for working so hard this year and achieving so many deliverables. 

Never did I imagine there was so much work involved in 1) cleaning and organising the house to be in better shape to receive guests, whom I wanted to bring on a house tour, and 2) planning and ordering and buying/preparing the food of the party. It was insane and nail-biting to the last minute and I frankly did not know how the food would turn out until the food was on the table. There was a bit of a hiccup when I started heating up the ribs and turkey 20 to 30 minutes before we were supposed to eat dinner but when I opened the package, realised the ribs and turkey were quite huge and also cold and I didn't have enough rack space in the oven. Plus the quiche also needed to be heated up. One of my colleagues popped into the kitchen and asked if she could help and I said why not (I'm not one to refuse help usually and I can always put people to work).  Another wandered into the kitchen next asking if I needed help and he was very useful.

Well I eventually got all the food on the table and people started eating and chatting with one another, and all I was doing was running around back and forth getting food ready and topping up stuff that was getting low and heating up things. I only started eating when all the policy folks had eaten and the international relations folks arrived. By then the turkey was all out (it's actually kind of yummy and tastes like a tastier version of turkey I've had before) and the pork ribs were thin on the meat bit fatty and divine. My fingers were sticky sweet and fragrant with pork and BBQ juices when I was done. Yum.... 

My kids also surprisingly left us alone most of the time. I realised that when you spend a lot of effort on something, you derive a lot more satisfaction when it has gone well! A bit like Little Prince and what not. Which tells me something about spending money to buy something off the shelf Vs something you made yourself ...