Well, it's been a busy time here at our winter home. Barb has been kept hopping with preparing for, then pulling off the holiday parties at Bella Terra. Big this year was the Christmas dinner and the New Years Eve Casino night. There was also a golf cart parade through the park.
For the Christmas Party, we participated in a thing called "Dirty Santa". That is where you (along with the other participants) bring a gift and put it under the tree. Then you are called up randomly to pick a gift. The catch is that you can choose an unwrapped gift or you can "steal" a previously selected gift. A gift can be stolen up to three times! Turned out to be great fun and several gifts made the rounds their maximum three times.
Here the folks are sampling the many treats that were brought by our guests. You can see many of the presents under the tree waiting to be handed out later.
Above is the aforementioned golf cart parade. As you can see, Santa rides in style!
On New Years Eve they pulled out all the stops. Professional gaming tables and dealers were brought in and everyone was given $500 of fake money with which to purchase chips. Then they played the games for several hours while enjoying a great catered meal. At the end of the evening, around 10:00, the folks exchanged their winnings for tickets that went into a big fish bowl. Then the tickets were drawn for a wide variety of prizes that had been graciously donated by local merchants (i.e. Barb and Phyllis--the other resort host this winter--begged, borrowed or charmed merchants for the prizes). At the conclusion of the proceedings, the maintenance staff presented the guests with a high dollar fireworks show. I never saw them as I was too busy running from staging area to launch area, but I was told that it was very impressive. Not a bad way to ring in the New Year, firing off a whole bunch of high dollar pyrotechnics!!
So, here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year from Barb, Brad, and Misty the wonder dog!
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