Every year my college friends and I get together to celebrate the holidays and just reconnect again. This year was extra awesome because we did a White Elephant gift exchange. If you never played it before, it’s quite simple. Just bring a wrapped gift and each person takes turn opening one. The person that goes after has the option of stealing an opened gift or opening a new one, and so on. It’s quite fun. ;) The kids all got the gifts they wanted, and everyone had a blast. I had a fabulously memorable night! Thanks for planning Viv & Ann! :)

Oh yes, this was the gift I won at the party. No, not the penguin mug, but the pet rock. lol Luckily there were two movie tickets attached to the gift as well. Woot! Time to go see Avatar!

And Albert got his gifts stolen left and right. He ended up stealing the toilet roll with lottery tickets attached to it. Funny gifts. :) I can’t wait until next year!

Wishing you and your families a happy and joyful holiday season! May your holiday celebration be filled with great memories. I can’t wait to see you in 2010! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Love,
Daynah

Natalie Cole and Straight No Chaser

The traffic to The Grove wasn’t too bad. There was just a long line waiting to get into the parking structure. We got there a little after 5pm so we were still quite early!

After we parked and looked down to see the stage, I was just in awe. The lights and decorations were magnificent! I was immediately filled with Christmas spirit!

As I went down each flight of escalator, I could feel the excitement building up! We walked down the red carpet and into this Winter Wonderland… wow, lots of sparkling lights, Santa’s workshop, and giant lolipops!

Next to Santa’s workshop was The Band From TV’s booth. I wanted the cd! And lucky me, they had autographed ones! So I got that and they gave me a raffle ticket to fill out.

We met up with @TechFrog for a bit, had dinner, and he disappeared. lol We headed over to the crowd — and yes, it was VERY crowded. From where I was standing, I was able to see pretty much… nothing. haha But we were close to the speakers, so I could hear all the music.

The show started at 7:30pm and we were greeted by actor and comedian, Jon Lovitz. Natalie Cole sang us the official Christmas song… “Straight No Chaser,” an amazing Acapella group performed, “The Top Hats” danced for us, so did two stars from “Dancing with the Stars.” Santa ‘dropped’ in on stage, and there was falling snow and fireworks all in one night. And at the end, members from The Band from TV filled the stage including Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman from Heroes), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh from Heroes), Christine Rose (Angela Petrelli from Heroes), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli from Heroes), James Denton (Mike from Desperate Housewives), Bob Guiney (from the Bachelor), and many more!

And you know what the best part of the night was? Before they started the show, they pulled out the winning raffle tickets for the autographed guitars! Guess whose name got picked?! Yes……. I was so excited, I was all shaking! I still can’t believe I won!

After the show was over, I headed to Santa’s workshop to pick up the guitar. It’s beautiful!! I do need help with figuring out all the signatures. :) Help? Click on the photo and help tag them. :)

Above is a video clip from the show. Natalie Cole and Straight No Chaser. More videos are coming soon, so check back!

And here are some photos from our night at The Grove in LA.

View The Grove Photo Set

Read more about the Grove event