Virginia told me she wanted to invite a few people over before Christmas. She told me it wouldn’t be a lot of people, that nobody would accept our invitation.

Well, she was wrong.

Almost 40 people joined us for a very fun but not small at all holiday party on the Sunday before Christmas. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of several inscrutable laws of party hosting:

• No matter how big your house, every person huddles in a 220-square-foot space and refuses to budge.
• No matter how much wine you purchase for the party and how much wine everyone drinks, you will have more wine at the end than you did at the beginning.