Tea & Automatons

To close out the year, I give you one last set of vintage cards celebrating the new year.

Okay, these next few vintage cards are quite odd.  Birds building their own flying machines?  Bunnies using other bunnies to power their sleigh?  But strangest of all is the last offering.  There just are no words.

For Christmas, I have found some wonderful vintage cards featuring Santa with some unusual modes of transportation.  Often it appears that he is just dumping toys out to fall down to the good and unsuspecting girls and boys.  In one, he appears to have gotten a bit too far from the earth, but hopefully he knows what he’s doing.

It’s that time of year.  Time to attend the company holiday party.  It can be fun depending on the company.  Some companies really know how to throw a fun party.  Others will at least have good food.  With the down turn in the economy, their budgets have gotten tighter, so both food and fun are less prevalent than in the past.

But if you are the plus one for your spouse, S.O. or friend, it can be difficult.  You rarely know anyone there. You are stuck in the middle of boring work related conversations or trying to find common ground with other plus ones.    To my great delight, I was recognized by several steampunk fans and got to chatting about that.  We even managed to find a few converts so we got to preach the word of Steamcon.

The big conundrum for me was what to wear.  I made the mistake of dressing up too much in the past, and feeling out of place.  The invitation said it was a “Winter Circus” theme and cocktail attire is encouraged.  That sounded wonderful.  Right up my alley, but what to wear that won’t get me confused with the entertainment.  Full on steampunk is probably not good.  There’s memorable and there’s making a good impression on my husband’s co-workers.  So I opted for a black velvet jacket, gold organza skirt and a small black hat.  As we came in I was happy to note that the hat I almost wore was being worn by the fire performer.  Whew.  I got lots of compliments on my cute, but not too over the top hat.  Then the two girls on stilts came over to let me know they were wearing the same hat!  Lol!  Oh well.  I got a cute photo with them.

The atmosphere was very fun.  They had made up Union Station into a circus tent.  There were lots of wandering performers and an aerialist rig in the center.  Contortionists, a juggler, a magician, a numerologist and more!  The food was tasty and the bartenders were skilled, so we had a great time.

The music got louder and it became hard to carry on a conversation.  The music was very eclectic.  People did dance though.  In fact one of the stilt walkers came back over and asked if I was dancing, so I danced with her.  It was a very odd but fun experience.  She even got me to twirl a few times.  I was wishing I had worn more danceable clothing.  Next the pretty little mime came over and did some mirroring with me.    I felt that I did pretty well at keeping up with her.

My only complaint would be that they had a candy and flavored popcorn instead of real desserts.  I have to admit that it did fit the theme and was easy to eat, so it worked.

All in all, kudos to the people putting it on.  It was a great party and we had a great deal of fun.