The Best Baby Shower Ever!

My youngest daughter, Melissa, is expecting her third child, and yesterday, her sisters and friends threw her a baby shower. I don’t know how it is in the rest of the U.S., but baby showers are usually only given for a first baby here in the Deep South. Exceptions are made when the second or third babies are of a different sex than the first, or when the children are far apart in years. Melissa was approved on both counts. She has two boys – one seven and the other almost four, and this little one is a girl.

The girls giving the shower argued for weeks about where to hold the shower. Finally, they came to me and asked if we could have it at the Elks Lodge. My husband and I are members, and we have a beautiful facility that has just been remodeled. It has a game room, a dining room, a ballroom, a huge swimming pool, an outdoor patio area, and of course, a bar. I phoned the manager, and she said we could have the party in the dining room for free. This was great, especially since the club is only a few blocks from my house.

My oldest daughter, Mandy, has a party supply store, so she did all the decorations, and they looked great. She included lots of baby shower balloons that floated over the tables. Several people brought food, and since the dining room was just outside the huge kitchen, we had a place to prep the hors d’oeuvres, and we were even allowed to use the club’s silver serving trays.

The shower was a big hit! We had more guests than we expected, and we had lots of yummy food: sausage balls, cheese balls, a chicken spread, deli ham and cheeses, crackers, cookies, fresh strawberries and fruit dip, chicken salad sandwiches, pineapple and cream cheese sandwiches, pretzels coated with pink icing, pink candies, punch, and a beautiful cake. Many of the foods were pink since the baby is a girl.

The facility’s bar was just a few steps away from the dining room. I noticed a couple of guests were missing, and I wondered where they had drifted off to. Soon they returned to the shower, with margaritas in hand! I called everyone’s attention to the two culprits and loudly announced, “You might be a redneck if…”

We all had a good laugh. No one cared a bit! In fact, after Melissa finished opening her mountain of gifts and the party began to wind down, we all began to make our way to the bar. When the shower was officially over, most of the guests went to the bar instead of going home, except for the guest of honor. She had to call her husband for help to load up all the gifts she received.

One of my best friends, Sandi, had come up from another town to attend the shower. Her husband, Robert, was at my house, watching some race with my husband. My oldest friend, Beth (fellow hubber), decided to stay, too. Her husband was attending an all-night function with some of his guy pals. Sandi, Beth, and I had a blast in the bar and in the dining room. I drifted back and forth between the two rooms. We had no reason to hurry home since our husbands were otherwise entertained, so we made a night of it. I ran into lots of old friends and made a couple of new ones. After several Long Island iced teas, Beth proclaimed, “Wow! This is the best baby shower I ever attended!”

When the girls were planning the shower, they asked me for ideas, and I had considered a tea party baby shower, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind! This was a pretty unique baby shower, however!

I wholeheartedly concur with Beth's proclamation! It was the best baby shower ever!