Sharing recipes, crafts and frugal living, the challenges and triumphs of parenting a neurotypical child and a child on the Autism Spectrum. Yoga Instructor said goodbye to her nightly glass of Chardonnay to give up habits that were not serving her purpose in life! The CocktailMom name remains, however with a new focus on healthy and authentic living.

2/04/2008

Notes from the CocktailMoms Celebrates 1st Anniversary

Three hundred and sixty-five days have passed since the first blog post appeared on Notes from the CocktailMoms. Many thanks go out to all the readers and especially to all of you who have taken the time to post a comment.

Gretchen and I began calling ourselves CocktailMoms around the Christmas of 1999. That year was the first Christmas that we were not going to be with our respective families for the Holidays so we decided to cook Christmas dinner for ourselves and as many of our friends that we could fit in my tiny NYC apartment. It went so well that we did it again the following year.

We both fell in love with entertaining friends for various holidays and it wasn't uncommon for us to put our cooking, crafting, and planning skills together to throw birthday parties, Thanksgiving Dinners, Showers, or an Easter Brunch. These parties were seldom elegant or full of stuffy rules. We ate homestyle cooking and often had a handmade party favor. There were always plenty of cocktails and everyone it seemed had the kind of time that makes memories.

Although the term has many different meanings, to me being a CocktailMom is essentially a way of defining myself as a hip woman who enjoys cooking, crafting and caring for friends as well as family. In the beginning neither of us was an actual mother but when we threw our parties, we did our best to invite any of our co-workers and friends that could not make it home to their families over the Holidays. It was always fun to hear someone comment that one of our parties was just as good or better than being with their real mothers over the holidays.

Years have passed and Gretchen is a real mom now. And a great one at that. Unfortunately, Gretchen and I aren't in the same city anymore and therefore needed an outlet to share with our friends and family our crafts, recipes, and thoughts on life. So welcome to our virtual party. We hope to keep posting and hope you keep visiting for years to come.
--Jessica

We have one major rule for ourselves at our CocktailMom parties...well 2...always have a drink nearby and never, ever sit down. Once you do you'll realize how tired you are and Jessica has been known to fall asleep. You have to watch her!

When we started throwing CocktailMom parties I actually preferred to celebrate my holidays with our friends verses my family. Not that I don't love my family but the collection of people and the energy in the room was remarkable. And the big bonus was the stress level was low. Who cares if the napkins don't match or that someone has to sit on a pillow to eat. Ah well...it's a party! Have fun!
Anyway, thank you all for reading the blog and I hope you are enjoying our tips, tricks and treats. I've enjoyed this year so much...and look forward to many more.
---Gretchen

2 comments:

Jessie Blum @ Eclectic Unions said...

Yay! Happy Blog-iversary! Here's to many more years of Cocktailing Mom-ing ahead. I'll toast you with my coffee this morning.

Anonymous said...

I do miss those parties...*sigh*

But this reaches a far greater number of people than just a lucky few in NYC.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails