A Masquerade Christmas Cocktail Party

Two nights ago T's work threw a Christmas party for their employees.  It was masquerade themed and we received masks with our invitation and were instructed to wear them (the masks, not the invitation).  Everyone was excited because the previous two Christmas parties had been at a BBQ joint and a sandwich shop.  Apparently this was a good year for T's work.

So what do you wear to a Christmas masquerade cocktail party?  It was easy for T: a suit and tie.  Me... not so easy.  Cocktail attire usually = knee length dress.  And I do have a really nice little black dress that would have worked.  But it's kinda sedate for a masquerade Christmas combo.  So I went shopping.  Duh.

I was looking for a bib necklace (like this) to sparkle up my black dress or a new dress and ended up with a new dress.  It's long but I think the metalic-ness of the dress made it okay for a cocktail party. 

The eye holes in the masks were way off and were totally cutting into our eyeballs.  But they looked and felt mostly okay after we took a box cutter to them.  So... here we are! 

Some people really went all out with the masks and wore really nice / expensive ones.  We just wore the plain ones that came with the invite which was probably good because after the first hour, everyone took their masks off.  It was just too hot.  Plus, I think most of us like having our peripheral vision.

My hair was very much not cooperating, hence the braid.  This lovely iPhone photo brought to you by one of T's buzzed co-workers.  Check out how wet T is!  It was pouring on our way in.

The restaurant was sort of Moulin Rouge themed.  EVERYTHING was red velvet and gold and crystal.  I'm going to do a terrible job of explaining this, but there was also a glassed in stage that had dancers about every 15 minutes.  I'm sure the dancers were meant to accent the Moulin Rouge feel, but the dancers weren't good and it was just weird choreography.  I think they were mostly ignored because everyone else was too busy taking advantage of the open bar.

We ended up staying an hour later than we expected because we wanted to see if T won the guessing game that had a $1,000 cash prize (he didn't).  We left around 10:45, but apparently the party went on all night.  After the official party ended at 11 they went to karaoke. Then a diner.  Then to Adams Morgan (a major night life area in D.C.).  So the after parties went until about 3 a.m. and everyone was late and hung over at work the next day.  So glad we are not partiers / drinkers.  We are not missing out on anything.

This is after we got home.

This dress is SUPER comfy.  I'm totally going to wear it to church this week.  I bet the nursery kids will love it.  You know, if they even ever notice what I wear.  Actually sometimes they do.  I wore my blue tights a few weeks ago and our favorite little red-headed girl told me that she liked them.