Dinner party

Have always wondered where I inherited my insane Martha Stewart's proclivities - just come look at my gaudily bedecked Christmas tree and assorted decorative ornaments around the hall - and recently it occurred to me that I've probably gotten the Stepford homemaker gene from my mom. Outwardly passing for normal but just whisper the words dinner party to the woman and she turns radically psychotic. Two egg nogs short of a gleaming butcher's knife for the turkey.

Quite possible that my mom keeps a hidden folder titled Dinner Parties just for such special occasions since she miraculously came up with a zillion ideas for a Christmas feast made specially for the Holy Family, the Three Wise Men and their entire flock of sheep. Even the Little Drummer Boy come to think about it. The assorted dishses she came up for the dinner menu astonished me since I doubt even Nigella Lawson has heard of some of them.


The Three Wise Men get prepared for the Christmas informal
And the numbers invited? Just short of a trailer-sized circus tent placed outside my house with little homemade signs ( in lieu of the North Star ) inviting all and sundry along the roads leading to the way to the impromptu kenduri. Really.

If I'd thought that my overly ambitious cousin had invited the whole village and their mothers over for his Big Fat Chinese Wedding dinner, well this time my mom certainly prepared enough to feed the whole lot. Terrifyingly enough with the truckloads of food-glorious-food being delivered to my doorstep, it was as if an entire starving barely-developing African nation had been invited over for supper. And boy, were they famished!

Even famed ragamuffin Oliver Twist couldn't have asked for more.

And here, I'd only invited a handful of my close friends for the assumed informal meeting. Not sure exactly how my mom misinterpreted what I said.

Paul : No problem. I'll invite a friend or two - Tom and Dick possibly.
What mom obviously heard in her deranged dinner hostess trance : I am gonna invite every Tom, Dick, Harry and all their living relatives in a 200 miles radius for a winter formal.

Who knows what we're gonna do with the leftovers? Maybe donate them to the unfortunate homeless flood victims?