Happy Belated Founders’ Day, Sisters!

I feel like I should have done this a while ago, but life kind of got in the way.

Alpha Omicron Pi is celebrating 120 years of sisterhood in 2017. One hundred and twenty years! I highly doubt our lovely founders would have expected this growth in the last 120 years since they founded our lovely sorority in a tiny room at Banard College at Columbia University in New York on that cold winter day.

I got to spend December 8th – the day we traditionally celebrate our founding as most universities are not in session on January 2nd when we officially were founded – with the Nashville Area Alumnae Chapter. They had their Favorite Things Christmas Party that night at one of our Past International Presidents’ home. We had sweets and dinner together and then shared our favorite things in the form of gifts. Each sister that attends brings five of the same gift which is one of their favorite things and they all write their names down five times. The idea is that you have enough sisters in attendance so that all sisters leave with at least a couple gifts.

Each sister stands up and explains their gift. You can either wait until they are opened or explain before passing them out. We also introduce ourselves and all that mess because in an Alum chapter that serves a great portion of the Middle Tennessee area, it is really had to know everyone! The way sisters are chosen are by the person giving the gift out. A sister draws five names out of a container and those are the sisters who receive the gifts!

I absolutely love the gifts I got from the party and I cannot wait to put them all to use.

The first one I want to share with you is probably going to be my absolute favorite for the rest of my life because A) I love to host parties – I just do not get the opportunity to do so currently -, B) I am addicted to cute things for wine glasses, and C) I fully admit that I am a wino. A picky wino, but a wino none the less. So these adorable little wine glass tags are right up my alley.

Now everyone got a completely different set from one another, but I am so excited I got these with all their Christmas words on them! I think I am definitely going to have to start a collection of different wine charms like these because we are going to face the music now: the minute I can get settled in my own place I will be hosting parties as often as I can because I love warm intimate gatherings!

The second gift that I wanted to share is very AOΠ. If you are not familiar with AOΠ, then here is your introduction! We have an unofficial animal mascot that is dear to our hearts. Originally it was a Kangaroo but they changed it. What year it was changed, I am not quite sure to be honest. But our unofficial animal mascot was eventually changed from the Kangaroo to the Panda! Why a panda you might be asking. Well this is because in the wild pandas have no natural enemy – unless you count hunters that want to kill them for sport or for their beautiful fur. So our animal is a Panda and the second gift I am sharing is the Panda I received.

Just going to say, before this one I believe my Panda count was at like 35? Yeah, I love pandas. And that includes the ones I discovered in my childhood stuffed animals when I was going through them to see what I could let go of.

The third gift I wanted to share may become my favorite quickly once I get the opportunity to use it. Just so you know, I baked a ton of cookies for this party which required an hour prep two days before of gingerbread cookie dough, the next day I made two batches of sugar cookies – because the recipe said it made three dozen and I only got two and a half – as well as baked the gingerbread cookies. That was a total of three hours baking the day before and I then proceeded to stay up until midnight hand icing every single one of those cookies! So we establish that I adore to bake at this point. This little gift is going to be fun for when I start to play around more with my baking skills.

Going to be honest a joke was made about just using it to drizzle chocolate straight into the mouth. I will probably at least use it for that one a month or so…. Just being honest here. I theorize that if I ever try to fill something like a cupcake with chocolate or something else that it would probably be amazing for doing that as well.

This next gift is pretty much one of the cutest things I have ever seen. I try not to collect things to hold jewelry in because A) I do not wear a lot of jewelry on a daily basis and B) I pretty much have it all stored in a make up box already. But I supposed I will use this adorable little tray for when I am baking in the kitchen and cannot wear my rings or use it in the bathroom so I cannot lose my rings down the sink.

It is definitely adorable and will definitely be put to use!

The last gift that I have to share is probably going to become my best friend if I will just remember I have it and can use it! So I am one of those girls. You know the ones, the ones that will wait until their head starts itching like crazy because of how dirty it is to wash it. And why should I was it often when I work all the time and have to wear it in a ponytail? But once I try this product out there will definitely be a review for it up here on the blog.