One of the best things about being a lady and living relatively close to some of your most awesome friends is…what we like to call girl gatherings. We like to plan them far in advance {let’s be honest…our schedules are crazy these days} and make them…well aWeSoMe. One of the longest running girl gathering traditions with my ladies is something we like to call… PCGGE. So without further ado i present a lovely little question and answer session about this fabulous girl gathering tradition with the events original “founder” and one of my favorite ladies…The Mayo…
HSE: Who is The Mayo?
TM: Ah the Mayo. WELL, Mayo is my last name. So I’m not just a fan of mayonnaise or of the Kraft company…although I do love me some mayonnaise. I’m basically your normal, single, outstanding 30-something female. I have an 8-5 M-F job that generally pays my bills, I have a couple of groups of friends from college/work/neighborhood that I love to hang out with, and I have a cat from college that I treat like a roommate/my child. I have a few loves that I talk about on my newly minted blog, mayodidit.wordpress.com (soon to be www.mayodidit.com, once I learn how this bloggy codey thing works) that includes crafting, food, and live music. So you know, doin’ my thang just like all the other ladies out there.
HSE: So how’d you get the idea for this “PCGGE” ?!? and what does PCGGE mean anyhow?
TM: After I graduated from university with a BS in Chemistry (what was i thinking?!), I moved in with my parents. After working a lab job for about a year, I decided that myself and my poor cat had had enough tearing up the interstate just to visit my friends, so I moved to the great ATL where the majority of my friends lived. That Christmas, after several months of living on friend’s couches, I finally got settled into a tiny studio apartment and was pretty broke with all those new-place-just-moved-start-up fees. I decided to invite my girlfriends over for a good old White Elephant party, so we could each get only ONE gift for the whole group. You know, its hard to get a decent present for each friend when you’ve got 6 or 7 girls who are all very close; cause’ you know if you leave one person out at the tender age of 24, you could hurt someone’s feelings. When i started asking around to see who was free, we were all SO busy with work parties and family engagements, that we ended up setting the date for the weekend after new years. I set the rule that instead of a gag gift, get a really GREAT present, and utilize all the after-Christmas sales! (Double win – SALES and GIFTS!!) Thus was born the “Post Christmas Girls Gift Event” aka PCGGE.
HSE: How does the gift exchange work at PCGGE?
TM: It’s a traditional White Elephant…Oh, some people don’t know what that is? Okay, okay, for those who don’t know: So everyone brings one unmarked wrapped gift at the same price. I make a bowl full of little scraps of paper with numbers and we each draw a number. Numero Uno gets to choose the first gift under the tree! It gets unwrapped, we all ooh and ahh, and then it’s Number 2′s turn. Now Number 2 can either “steal” the present that Number 1 is holding, or open a new gift. If they choose to steal, that gift has been “stolen” once (a rule of the game is that each gift can only be stolen 3 times…so very often there will be a gift stolen three times and it is “frozen” and that person who stole it the third time ends up with the gift). So the game goes on until all of the gifts have been opened. Now I know you’re thinking, “Geez, Numero Uno gets screwed!” But that’s not true. After everyone is holding an unwrapped gift, Numero Uno has the choice to SWAP gifts one final time with someone (except with any frozen gifts). So basically – you wanna be Numero Uno…I mean, that’s what life is all about, right? Being Numero Uno?? Maybe we should rename all White Elephant gift exchanges to “The Game of Life.”…Oh wait, that name is taken.
HSE: What kinds of food & drink goodies are served at PCGGE?
TM: ALL kinds. Seriously. I have a handful of randar foodies in my circle of friends; a pescetarian, a vegetarian, a non-pork omnivore, a baconarian…yes, that last one is true. Okay, it’s not, but it should be. Since this started out as a “Hey ladies, I’m poor and ya’ll are poor and we should hang together,” we all brought a dish. That tradition continues. We get teeny carrot cupcakes from my bakery friend (tsp bakery), Chic-Fil-A nugget trays from my lazy/genius friends, mozz/basil/tomato skewers, cookies, candy, meatballs, chips, salsa, any kind of dip you can think of, buffalo chicken rolls. There literally is no end to what we bring and what we will eat. As far as drinks go, it’s wine. Mostly wine. I like to get a bottle of the X-Rated Fusion Liqueur a.k.a. “The Pink Vodka,” for a ladies group shot about halfway through the night. It’s delicious, no one pukes because of it and it’s pink…and delicious.
HSE: What are some of the great stories that have come out of PCGGE?
TM: Wow, that is a question I could answer for days. There have been so many stories that are now staples in my little social circle! There are a couple that immediately come to mind. One year, we had a group of about 10 girls; this was the year that the “You can’t steal your own gift” rule began. One lady was especially excited about the gift she’d brought, and the fact that it was “dishwasher safe”…well, turns out it was a how-you-say… self pleasuring item for women?! And then, after it was opened, she attempted to steal it. ”But you guys, it’s DISHWASHER SAFE!” like it was made of gold or something. Another year, we were a few hours into the party, and one of my dear friends who rarely drinks was enjoying a mommy’s-night-out, stumbled out of the bathroom wearing a pair of my undies over her jeans and a towel rod in hand. She came to me and quietly said “I puked. But I cleaned it all up. I think this is your towel rod?!” To which another girl said, “Panties over pants!” and suddenly everyone was in my undies drawer pulling all types of underthings over their clothing. And I thought, “Hey this towel rod would make a great mike if it had a grapefruit on it”… then I shouted, “and while everyone’s in my closet, get a hat on!” (Sidebar: Although I live in Georgia, I have an unreasonable amount of winter hats.) From there, I have a video of about 6 girls wearing ski hats, sunglasses, underwear over their clothes, and singing Corey Hart’s “I Wear my Sunglasses at Night”
No, You can not see it.
~The Mayo
