Part One: To Dine For: Enriching the Senses
What I'd like to learn one day:
Fencing (I know- very random)
Shamisen (The dissonant Japanese instrument that's a distant relative to the guitar. I really love the sound of it- very sterile and short compared to fluid western music. Hm.. I should buy some shamisen music on Itunes.... hahaha. Not your typical teenage music. :P)
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I'm quite excited about this dinner gathering/party I'm hosting with Sam at my house for a few RHCBers (seven to eight guests to be exact) on Thursday evening next week. It's quite pathetic. There's something ingrained in me- this love for hosting parties/events. I once considered doing event planning but figured there really wasn't a college that would hold such degrees or courses (Parsons does for Design and Management kids- my roomie is going into event planning... I bought her a book on it for Christmas as a Secret Santa present and I flipped through it- there is so much stuff to consider from caterers to parking to how guests get around to budgeting etc. That's multitasking at its finest). I love planning these kinds of things- something I know many people dislike because they take much time, care and planning. But to see the end result and to watch your guests having fun seems worth all the effort.
I think this interest of mine sparked when several years ago I purchased this book via media recommendation called 'Be My Guest'- a hardcover book of 168 glorious pages of the most elaborate, expensive themed parties held by Chanel to rich New Yorkers to Oscar de la Renta to close friends. Of course I can't recreate such lavish parties but it just sparked and ignited my imagination which then prompted me to hold intimate parties with my friends. From gr 10-12 we held a Murder Mystery party with the help of those store-bought packages (I was the murderer as so we discovered towards the end of the game) to a 'French' Diner de Tetes (much like a masquerade but all focus goes to the head- I included cheap masks in my invite
s that were shaped like a side profile of a head: image on the right) to a Hollywood Affair (invites included paper doll avec les robes) to Afternoon Tea with Robyn and my aunt (I remember trying to find the three tier plate but no one sold them) Christmas Potlucks to Valentine's Day Girl Gathering (I created cupcakes iced with sayings like 'XOXO' and 'Eat Me' a la Alice in Wonderland) to a Summer Graduation Fete (dessert only haha) to a Raps Crew gathering (image on the right: invite was made out of plastic measuring cups 
which I filled with some baked goods and the paper invite itself was a cookie shape. The name tag was a cut-out piece of paper with a fortune cookie and the guest's name printed on it). Oh yes and my birthday last year- since it would be the last for my high school friends and we'd go on our seperate ways, I decided to do a scrapbooking party to remember our four years together. Invites consisted of different scrapbooking materials such as paper and ribbon and each guest was given a scrapbook upon arrival. Anyway I used the Masquerade theme once over last Christmas with 
another AY party- and one of my creative fob friends made a Chinese Opera mask- it's so great! check it out: image on the right. It was made out of a paper plate and construction paper. Genius! But now I'm really sick of the Masquerade theme. They've all been quite fun though they resembled nothing like the ones in the book but we all had our fill of laughs, food and fun.
So when I got the opportunity to do the decorations for RHCBC's Masquerade, I immediately jumped on. I had a grand sum of $250 to spend on whatever I wished (I stretched it a bit- they initially only wanted to allot $150. I told them: are you kidding me, I need more for so many tables). Borrowing from the ideas from the 'Diner de Tetes' (image on the left) using styrofoam mannequin heads and making crazy art pieces from them. Because I already once used this idea for a dinner party I held in gr 10, I knew where to buy the heads ($6 ea.) and I went with my parents to the party store and came home with about twenty five heads in huge cardboard boxes. I must admit it looked really creepy when it was dark- all you could see were forms of heads sitting and staring at you. 
Anyway, I couldn't afford to replicate the heads they did for the party that was suggested in the book (included glitter covered heads and huge ostrich feathers in indigo blue) so wire, candy canes, masks (the same ones I used for my own invites) and christmas paraphernelia to decorate the white heads. The tricky part was first storing them- I had a Christmas party that year with my Art friends and had issues with hiding them to prevent them from being knocked over. Secondly- the hardest- was to create a stand that would hold the heads up. In the book the heads were placed on iron rods that rose four feet off the table to create drama. I ended up using chopsticks and stuffing the heads with tissues paper to keep the stick in. The base was made out of dollar store tupperware filled with gravel and wrapped in tissue paper. Those things pissed the heck out of me because they kept wobbling (Now looking back I should have just used wrapped boxes that are tall and narrow). Carting them to the church was quite an ordeal- and taking them in. But all my work with the stands went to waste when Karen started planting seeds of doubt in me- telling me that they'd topple over and catch fire because of the small tealights. I have to learn to be more assertive. Anyway, we ended up taking the heads of their bases- they weren't as dramatic then but oh well. I couldn't afford to do heads for every table so the side tables had gold plastic plates with dollar store candles of varying heights (three makes a wonderful number) and pinecones I had purchased and blotted with gold. Also the existing tablecloths that the church had were all different colours (-_-) so I ended up getting more silver I think and sprinkled iridescent confetti over the table. I think the only minor glitch that happened that evening was when the back christmas lights fell and me and karen had to try and rescue them while the play was going on (the play was amazing- I loved the spotlighting which enhanced the characters and all the props- thanks to Robyn). Too bad I didnt' take pictures of the sanctuary when it was all finished.. Stupid. I don't even remember why I didn't take pictures- I took 'before' shots but never took any 'after' pictures. :S I think it has been the most lavish RHCBC Christmas dinner I have ever seen at the church. I remember being shown the comment/question surveys at the end and the decor got a full ten stars. That made me really happy. This year, I was just looking at someone's pictures from the previous dinner and felt kind of depressed: blue tablecloths with a single tealight in the centre and the same Christmas lights hung on the walls.
So the ultimate question: why go through so much of the trouble, money spending and pains to create invitations, decorations etc? I mean the Christmas dinner should not be focused on decor anyway: it should be focused on outreach through a skit or music or a sermon or the personal testiomnies. Decor should be a secondary factor.
Firstly, when an invitation is well made be it a piece of paper or three dimensional, it has the seductive powers to lure guests to RSVP with a 'yes'. It can set the tone/mood of the party and becomes the motivating factor for guests to go over the top and participate fully in all their regalia or whatnot if it's a themed party. It's the equivalent to a teaser trailer for a movie and offers inspiration and excitement for the recipient.
As for the decor- it adds to the mood and heightens the senses. When a guest walks in it's like 'bam'- he or she is confronted by an explosion of glitzy heads, jewel-toned masks, swirls of feathers and metal, gleaming confetti and candlelight. The Christmas Masquerade decor basically summarized the theme of the evening in a glance: pretense and facades and echoed the beautifully painted masks that the actors wore. What does the guest see first? The skit or the room? The decor of course! If that goes well then you have a great start to the evening. Though you may not be a visual person, the decoration became the building blocks for the climax which was assumingly the play itself. It adds excitement- dramatizing the overall evening (the reason why I wanted to keep the bases rather than on the table: exaggerate the height of the heads allows the centerpieces to command a sort of presence.. When the heads are just placed on the tables, it lessens the effect). And since Auntie Jo wanted 'theatre', I gave her 'theatre'. Theatres are not for the borish and certainly not created to just blend in. They're created to heighten the senses of the viewers, to accompany the themes of the play/musical/skit. Have you seen the Parisian Opera House that was also featured in the film 'Phantom of the Opera? Its lavishness and over-the-top architecture and interiors- those principles are basically applied here. The centrepieces brought the entire room together, tying it nicely like a great essay- creating an intimate space in a large bland gym. People come to see a show, to eat and to mingle with friends. It's supposed to be an evening of relaxation and partying and not some conventional, cautious piece of 'blah'.
There is one thing I propose to RHCBC in terms of christmas decor if they'd prefer to skimp on the visuals: BUY REUSABLE ITEMS. The sad thing about the Christmas dinner I did was the fact that we never got to do a group review to run through the glitches of the evening and how we could improve them. All RHCBC has to do is buy plastic gold plates from the dollar store (about $3 each) and dress them up differently each year. You can stick candles like I did or place a centerpiece on top or place a few pinecones or tealights and a dust of confetti. It's simple, cheap, easy and environmentally friendly (not to mention, save a few plastic tablecloths from sticky wax). It's also more visually pleasing than just tealights sitting on plastic. It may cost a little more but it's more worthwhile.
It's not an artistic snobbery- far from that- but the reason why I go to such great lengths to dress up a room when having a party. When you see something dressed up beautifully- don't you go 'wow'? If a woman can seduce a man in a strapless evening gown, can a beautifully embellished room not captivate an audience? Even so for the non-artists, it subconsciously adds something more to an evening. It creates something for people to remember and to show others that Christians aren't bland, boring and serious- we can do things with colour, drama and flair. Admit it, if you brought your nonchristian friends, you'd want to impress them and for them to be impressed. If not, you could bring them to sit in a rather boring sermon... haha. And I've been to one too many. We can show non christians how to have a dazzingly good time and that we can be flamboyant and over-the-top. We're not as conservative and dullish as you may think. We can give them a night to remember.
Fencing (I know- very random)
Shamisen (The dissonant Japanese instrument that's a distant relative to the guitar. I really love the sound of it- very sterile and short compared to fluid western music. Hm.. I should buy some shamisen music on Itunes.... hahaha. Not your typical teenage music. :P)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm quite excited about this dinner gathering/party I'm hosting with Sam at my house for a few RHCBers (seven to eight guests to be exact) on Thursday evening next week. It's quite pathetic. There's something ingrained in me- this love for hosting parties/events. I once considered doing event planning but figured there really wasn't a college that would hold such degrees or courses (Parsons does for Design and Management kids- my roomie is going into event planning... I bought her a book on it for Christmas as a Secret Santa present and I flipped through it- there is so much stuff to consider from caterers to parking to how guests get around to budgeting etc. That's multitasking at its finest). I love planning these kinds of things- something I know many people dislike because they take much time, care and planning. But to see the end result and to watch your guests having fun seems worth all the effort.I think this interest of mine sparked when several years ago I purchased this book via media recommendation called 'Be My Guest'- a hardcover book of 168 glorious pages of the most elaborate, expensive themed parties held by Chanel to rich New Yorkers to Oscar de la Renta to close friends. Of course I can't recreate such lavish parties but it just sparked and ignited my imagination which then prompted me to hold intimate parties with my friends. From gr 10-12 we held a Murder Mystery party with the help of those store-bought packages (I was the murderer as so we discovered towards the end of the game) to a 'French' Diner de Tetes (much like a masquerade but all focus goes to the head- I included cheap masks in my invite
s that were shaped like a side profile of a head: image on the right) to a Hollywood Affair (invites included paper doll avec les robes) to Afternoon Tea with Robyn and my aunt (I remember trying to find the three tier plate but no one sold them) Christmas Potlucks to Valentine's Day Girl Gathering (I created cupcakes iced with sayings like 'XOXO' and 'Eat Me' a la Alice in Wonderland) to a Summer Graduation Fete (dessert only haha) to a Raps Crew gathering (image on the right: invite was made out of plastic measuring cups 
which I filled with some baked goods and the paper invite itself was a cookie shape. The name tag was a cut-out piece of paper with a fortune cookie and the guest's name printed on it). Oh yes and my birthday last year- since it would be the last for my high school friends and we'd go on our seperate ways, I decided to do a scrapbooking party to remember our four years together. Invites consisted of different scrapbooking materials such as paper and ribbon and each guest was given a scrapbook upon arrival. Anyway I used the Masquerade theme once over last Christmas with 
another AY party- and one of my creative fob friends made a Chinese Opera mask- it's so great! check it out: image on the right. It was made out of a paper plate and construction paper. Genius! But now I'm really sick of the Masquerade theme. They've all been quite fun though they resembled nothing like the ones in the book but we all had our fill of laughs, food and fun.
So when I got the opportunity to do the decorations for RHCBC's Masquerade, I immediately jumped on. I had a grand sum of $250 to spend on whatever I wished (I stretched it a bit- they initially only wanted to allot $150. I told them: are you kidding me, I need more for so many tables). Borrowing from the ideas from the 'Diner de Tetes' (image on the left) using styrofoam mannequin heads and making crazy art pieces from them. Because I already once used this idea for a dinner party I held in gr 10, I knew where to buy the heads ($6 ea.) and I went with my parents to the party store and came home with about twenty five heads in huge cardboard boxes. I must admit it looked really creepy when it was dark- all you could see were forms of heads sitting and staring at you. 
Anyway, I couldn't afford to replicate the heads they did for the party that was suggested in the book (included glitter covered heads and huge ostrich feathers in indigo blue) so wire, candy canes, masks (the same ones I used for my own invites) and christmas paraphernelia to decorate the white heads. The tricky part was first storing them- I had a Christmas party that year with my Art friends and had issues with hiding them to prevent them from being knocked over. Secondly- the hardest- was to create a stand that would hold the heads up. In the book the heads were placed on iron rods that rose four feet off the table to create drama. I ended up using chopsticks and stuffing the heads with tissues paper to keep the stick in. The base was made out of dollar store tupperware filled with gravel and wrapped in tissue paper. Those things pissed the heck out of me because they kept wobbling (Now looking back I should have just used wrapped boxes that are tall and narrow). Carting them to the church was quite an ordeal- and taking them in. But all my work with the stands went to waste when Karen started planting seeds of doubt in me- telling me that they'd topple over and catch fire because of the small tealights. I have to learn to be more assertive. Anyway, we ended up taking the heads of their bases- they weren't as dramatic then but oh well. I couldn't afford to do heads for every table so the side tables had gold plastic plates with dollar store candles of varying heights (three makes a wonderful number) and pinecones I had purchased and blotted with gold. Also the existing tablecloths that the church had were all different colours (-_-) so I ended up getting more silver I think and sprinkled iridescent confetti over the table. I think the only minor glitch that happened that evening was when the back christmas lights fell and me and karen had to try and rescue them while the play was going on (the play was amazing- I loved the spotlighting which enhanced the characters and all the props- thanks to Robyn). Too bad I didnt' take pictures of the sanctuary when it was all finished.. Stupid. I don't even remember why I didn't take pictures- I took 'before' shots but never took any 'after' pictures. :S I think it has been the most lavish RHCBC Christmas dinner I have ever seen at the church. I remember being shown the comment/question surveys at the end and the decor got a full ten stars. That made me really happy. This year, I was just looking at someone's pictures from the previous dinner and felt kind of depressed: blue tablecloths with a single tealight in the centre and the same Christmas lights hung on the walls.So the ultimate question: why go through so much of the trouble, money spending and pains to create invitations, decorations etc? I mean the Christmas dinner should not be focused on decor anyway: it should be focused on outreach through a skit or music or a sermon or the personal testiomnies. Decor should be a secondary factor.
Firstly, when an invitation is well made be it a piece of paper or three dimensional, it has the seductive powers to lure guests to RSVP with a 'yes'. It can set the tone/mood of the party and becomes the motivating factor for guests to go over the top and participate fully in all their regalia or whatnot if it's a themed party. It's the equivalent to a teaser trailer for a movie and offers inspiration and excitement for the recipient.
As for the decor- it adds to the mood and heightens the senses. When a guest walks in it's like 'bam'- he or she is confronted by an explosion of glitzy heads, jewel-toned masks, swirls of feathers and metal, gleaming confetti and candlelight. The Christmas Masquerade decor basically summarized the theme of the evening in a glance: pretense and facades and echoed the beautifully painted masks that the actors wore. What does the guest see first? The skit or the room? The decor of course! If that goes well then you have a great start to the evening. Though you may not be a visual person, the decoration became the building blocks for the climax which was assumingly the play itself. It adds excitement- dramatizing the overall evening (the reason why I wanted to keep the bases rather than on the table: exaggerate the height of the heads allows the centerpieces to command a sort of presence.. When the heads are just placed on the tables, it lessens the effect). And since Auntie Jo wanted 'theatre', I gave her 'theatre'. Theatres are not for the borish and certainly not created to just blend in. They're created to heighten the senses of the viewers, to accompany the themes of the play/musical/skit. Have you seen the Parisian Opera House that was also featured in the film 'Phantom of the Opera? Its lavishness and over-the-top architecture and interiors- those principles are basically applied here. The centrepieces brought the entire room together, tying it nicely like a great essay- creating an intimate space in a large bland gym. People come to see a show, to eat and to mingle with friends. It's supposed to be an evening of relaxation and partying and not some conventional, cautious piece of 'blah'.
There is one thing I propose to RHCBC in terms of christmas decor if they'd prefer to skimp on the visuals: BUY REUSABLE ITEMS. The sad thing about the Christmas dinner I did was the fact that we never got to do a group review to run through the glitches of the evening and how we could improve them. All RHCBC has to do is buy plastic gold plates from the dollar store (about $3 each) and dress them up differently each year. You can stick candles like I did or place a centerpiece on top or place a few pinecones or tealights and a dust of confetti. It's simple, cheap, easy and environmentally friendly (not to mention, save a few plastic tablecloths from sticky wax). It's also more visually pleasing than just tealights sitting on plastic. It may cost a little more but it's more worthwhile.
It's not an artistic snobbery- far from that- but the reason why I go to such great lengths to dress up a room when having a party. When you see something dressed up beautifully- don't you go 'wow'? If a woman can seduce a man in a strapless evening gown, can a beautifully embellished room not captivate an audience? Even so for the non-artists, it subconsciously adds something more to an evening. It creates something for people to remember and to show others that Christians aren't bland, boring and serious- we can do things with colour, drama and flair. Admit it, if you brought your nonchristian friends, you'd want to impress them and for them to be impressed. If not, you could bring them to sit in a rather boring sermon... haha. And I've been to one too many. We can show non christians how to have a dazzingly good time and that we can be flamboyant and over-the-top. We're not as conservative and dullish as you may think. We can give them a night to remember.
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