New Year's Celebration at Castle Argonor

The girls decorated the living/dining room as usual,
and the dog seemed to have somehow gotten in the way.

As usual, we had our annual little private party on the last evening of 2016.

This post is about that, and there will be absolutely no references to wargaming, just to spare you from scrolling through all the photos, if you could not give a damn. 😉

I did not take any photos of fireworks, either, as I was too busy igniting it when we were outside.

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The main course has been eaten, and Lea has her own little party, while the rest of us got rid of the bowls and dishes.

A view of the far end of the living room

Another view of the dining end of the room

I had to connect the TV to the computer, as our TV provider's entire network broke down, just shortly before the Queen's New Year's Speech.
It took about 48 hours, before the full TV package was restored, and the receiver box stopped acting weird.

The girls really went to town with the decorations - as usual

 Playing around with crackers and confetti

Sparklers were part of the arsenal, too

The girls had persuaded us to get some serpentine sprays.

Awful stuff.

The sparkler-thing got a bit out of hand - actually, this set fire to some of the table decoration, and I had to save the day with my bare hands. Only casualty was the table cloth, which we have had for a decade or so (and it can be reused as smaller table cloths), so we just agreed on keeping the sparkler-use at a minimum for the rest of the night.

Finally, this is how the coffee table end of the living room looked after the rest of the family went to bed.

You know you had a party when the tidying up takes the most of the next day!!!

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

If you have been with me all the way, thanks for reading - I promise gaming related updates tomorrow, but today was spent helping one of my friends (and gaming buddies) moving from a small apartment to a recently purchased house, not very far from where I am living!

The Halloween Party

I'm down with a flu or heavy cold, so not much progress to report on the gaming front - but I can just about manage half lying down on the couch with a heavy blanket to upload these pics from the Halloween party we held for our kids and their classmates:

Argonor's Attic almost set for the party

View from the other end

Zombilea

Zombilea with friends

Vampiranna

Party on! The flash ruins the impression a bit

Limbooooo!

Vampiranna lends a helping hand

Zombilea shuffles under the broomstick

Monster-Mash!

No idea what's going on!

I like the way the flash is caught in the eyes of the little monsters!

Streamer-time!

Always room for some extra cake!

Leftovers!

Even more leftovers!

We haven't heard anything but positive feedback, but I think we'll segregate the two age-groups next time we throw a party - in my impression, the 5th graders felt a bit 'crowded' by the 2nd graders, and they would have had even more fun without them.

Even then, I think most participants had a blast!

Argonor's Attic Transformed...

...into a banquet hall for next Friday, and the Halloween Party we are throwing for out kids and their school classmates.

The stuff on the desk in the middle, and the chairs, are going to be moved downstairs to the garage, where I'll set up a couple of tables for those parents who wish to be present.

The row of tables will serve two purposes: The outer ones will be used for the Monster Buffet  (each participant has to bring a dish for the buffet), and the middle one will be set/decorated as the Count's Table with candelabra, spooky glasses, cobwebs/spiders, etc.

Of course, the whole room will be decorated with various ghoulish stuff, and I'll hang two mirror balls  from the beams, and place a music system with some coloured spots that flash to the rhytm of the music on the bar, from which the kids kan buy cheap sodas.

I'll be sporting my Dementor suit, which I tested at the Odense Harry Potter Festival a week ago.

I'll document the various stages of preparations, and of course, also the party itself!

Sugar Spider-Webs for Halloween.

Bought this little gadget some time ago, at the same time as my chocolate fountain. It's a Candy Floss maker, and all you have to do is add a teaspoonful of sugar, then watch as the strings of sugar forms, and catch them on your paper cone. If THAT doesn't become a highlight on our Halloween party, I don't know what will!

'Tis the Season to be...Scary!

Very soon we have All Hallows' Eve (in Danish: Allehelgensaften), or, as it is more universally known, Halloween. Another pagan festival turned into a christian celebration, Halloween was originally the celtic New Year, also known as Samhain, where the veil between the land of the living and the realm of the dead was lifted, and thus the malevolent spirits entering the physical world had to have the living daylights scared out of them, so they would return to whence they came, leaving us mortals alone for another year...

Scary masks, large bonfires, grinning laterns made from turnips and other vegetables, were the means to this grim end, and the traditions survived the christianization to the present day, where kids and other childish beings dress up and have parties among skulls, spiders, severed limbs, bats, and all kinds of gross decorations.

We are going to throw such a party for our kids in Argonor's Attic (what better suited location could we find?), and they can invite all the kids from their respective classes at school.

We already own quite a selection of Halloween decorations, and I've got myself a Dementor suit with rubber mask and hands, but I purchased some extra pieces at an almost local supermarket today:

A ghost and a pair of plastic skulls. They should come in handy.