7th Grade Christmas Party

*This is all subject to my hazy memory malfunctioning, but I'm trying to remember the best I can

When I was in seventh grade at Paradise Middle School, it was supposed to be the first year our class would be able to attend a school dance, which was the Christmas party and dance normally held in our school cafeteria, only for seventh and eighth graders.  However, the two classes above us really screwed up, starting a food fight or some such nonsense the year before, and as a result, the school decided to no longer sponsor this activity.  I was really bummed and told my parents how unhappy I was, and somehow, it was decided that we would host a holiday party and dance at our house instead! I don't remember how I convinced my parents this was a good idea, but I remember thinking I just had the coolest parents and this was going to be the best party ever!

I went about preparing for the party with a fervor that was probably new to me.  Looking back now, this is officially the first party I "planned".  The first step was to clean my bedroom, which was located in our basement, and move most of the furniture out so that my bedroom would be the main party room and dance floor.  I moved my bed and other furniture out to the unfinished part of the basement and decorated my room.  I remember cutting old wrapping paper into strips, taping it up to make a border on my wood-paneled walls, while listening to Live at the 101: Warts and All.

I set up the half-finished room next to my bedroom as the "bar" and put blankets up to separate it from the unfinished part of the basement, and I know I spent a ton of time cleaning everything!  I wanted to impress all my friends and schoolmates.

I also had to obtain the latest and greatest music that I wanted to play at the dance.  "Roam" had just been released on MTV as the next B-52's single but it hadn't really made a big stir just yet.  "Sugar Daddy" by the Thompson Twins was my jam of the year, but I also insisted that the b-side, "Monkey Man," be played (incidentally, that song was just finally released to iTunes last week!).

Finally, after what seemed like months of preparation, but was probably just a couple of weeks, the big night arrived!  I think that it happened to be on the same night as a dress rehearsal for our church Christmas pageant, as I remember my mom loading our blue van up with all of the kids from church who were coming to the party.  

Being that this was such a big deal for me at the time, it's kind of disappointing now that there is so little of it that I remember.  Here are some things I do recall:  I asked my friend Angie to be the DJ because her sister(s?) had DJ'ed at other dances and had the biggest selection of music and had similar tastes to me, but I had a playlist of songs I wanted her to play, and hopefully I had made a mix tape too because I'd hate to think I just forced her to play DJ all night.  My brother Brandon hanging out with Natalie, the only 8th grader who I invited since she hadn't been there the year before to participate in the food fight that ruined it for the rest of us, and the two of them getting "drunk" on Mountain Dew.  Denton and others watching movies ("Batman" being one, I think) upstairs, but my sister Adrienne coming downstairs to get me when Madonna's "Oh Father" video came on MTV because she knew I loved that video.  And yes, that's really all I can remember now.  After it was all over, I remember going to sleep on my bed, pushed up against the bare concrete wall, thinking how sad it was that it was all over.