How (not) to Organise a Party in Mexico

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were chatting with some friends after a particularly good concert, and I suggested throwing a Christmas party for all our friends. ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘You're going to lumber me with all the organising!’ I told her not to worry, and that it would be easy.

Well, I didn't do anything for the first couple of weeks, but eventually got around to sending an invitation to a load of people in my e-mail contacts. Nothing happened. Then I got a reply from someone cancelling. Meanwhile, my girlfriend, accustomed to my inefficiency, had already begun talking it up with her friends at work.

As I was leaving for work one morning, I noticed that someone had put up a notice about our building’s Christmas party, along with a list of things to bring. It was the same evening as ours; so much for us being neighbourly this year. A couple of days later, I called the office and found out that the school Christmas breakfast was going to be the day after the party; another year without seeing my colleagues.

Yesterday, I asked a friend who was coming to the party what music he’d like to hear at the party. ‘Don't worry,’ he said. ‘Just make sure there’s a hook-up for my iPod.’ I had to tell him that the idea of a party is talk to people, not end up hunched over the stereo. Maybe I’ll give them half an hour for an iPod contest, but I invite my friends to talk to them, not peer at their music collections over their shoulders.

So, we’re nearly there, and it seems that plenty of people (invited mainly by my girlfriend) are going to show up. I just have to figure out how to make the punch and burn a CD of MP3s. I was right; it wasn’t that hard at all.