Christmas Party (Round 2)

Good Morning everyone! and happy short week of work because its Christmas time! YAY : ) I wanted to recap the end of my crazy week last week.. there was a different Christmas party every single day .. and it was crazy!! If you want to read about the 1st half of the week that consisted of the Staff Appreciation Day, Christmas Party #1 and a cookie exchange between me and my girlfriends..click here

Round two was probably the biggest Christmas party of the entire year. My office Christmas Party. I love this day because its a time to be able to sit down and hang out with your co workers as friends instead of the professionalism of working together.

The party was supposed to start at noon but I feel like everyone just considered it a day to talk to each other about holiday plans and what not. When I came in there was a very nice card and bag hanging on my door handle. It was from my boss.. (I am very lucky to work in a place where every boss Ive had has been absolutely amazing) and inside the bag was this..

Hot chocolate mix and peppermint stir sticks from Starbucks! MMM.. if you follow my tweets (which I think you should and if you dont click here..) You know that I usually fall into the Hot chocolate trap a few times a week so this was the perfect gift. I am saving it for Christmas eve morning on my way home to Warren.

At noon, we boarded a shuttle to take us over to Station Square because we were going to eat family style at one of my favorite places to eat in Pittsburgh.. BUCCA DI BEPPO. I love this place.. the location I always ago to is in Station Square.. if you havent been there please go! Its so interesting in there and plus they have the most amazing Italian food.

Everyone ordered a drink and since everyone else was ordering wine.. I decided to follow suit even though it felt very strange being that it was early in the day and these were my coworkers.. I ordered a Pinot Grigio which unfortunately they didnt have so I substituted in some Savignon Blanc : )

SOOO tastey

The food arrived and we had apple Gorgonzola salad and a mixed greens, delicious warm house made bread and then the most amazing of all.. Rigatoni with Italian sausage and spiced ground beef. It was so amazing..

As you can see we made short work of it before I even got around to taking a picture..

Here is everyone sitting and eating up a storm!

The dessert was cheesecake which I was actually a little disappointed in. I was happy that the portions were very small (bc lets face it.. even 2 bites of cheesecake is 400 calories) but it wasnt even worth it really. I have had much better tasting cheesecake that may have been worth the indulgence.

We got on the shuttle to head back to the homestead and start our Secret Santa party which of course consisted of more food. We had cookies, I brought some of the cookies from our cookie exchange the night before, there were Smiley cookies (yep from eatin park!), peppermint bark, mint chocolate cookies, caramel brownies, peanut butter and chocolate and of course peanut butter blossoms.

Everyone exchanged gifts and then had to guess who their gift was from. I was the last to get my gift so I have to admit.. it was pretty easy to figure out who it was.

This is my boss opening her gift.

All in all it was a fabulous day and a wonderful way to end the week : ) Now, its Monday and were back after a wonderful Sunday filled with family and a Steelers game (although a loss.. damn jets) but its a short week and by the end of it I will have seen my family for another year of yuletide togetherness and I will be in the arms of my long lost boyfriend.

I simply love this time of year.. Happy Holidays everyone! : )