I hosted my first ‘Christmas Around the World’ party in 1986. My Auntie Em had been going to these home parties and thought I should host one. Their hostess program was really wonderful. It was so easy to earn lots of free gifts. I only had a couple of actual home parties, where I had friends come to my house. I realized I could earn just as much by having ‘catalog’ parties, that is a party where I would pass out the catalogs to everyone I knew, but I didn’t have the hassle of a home party. You know, making all kinds of hors d’oeuvre that you always have tons left over, because it’s always better to have too much than too little, so you end up sending the left-overs in your kids lunches for a week, they also ended up drinking the left over punch. Lime green sherbet in pink lemonade looks so pretty in the punch bowl, but after it melts and becomes a cloudy foamy greenish, not a very pretty pinkish colored stuff, it would take a lot of convincing on my part to get them to believe that it really was OK to drink. Not to mention the added house-cleaning, the cleaning you do in case someone looks there kind of cleaning, which is why we probably have these parties in the first place, just so we have a reason to do the cleaning we wouldn’t do otherwise, or put off until, we are having a party.

I did that for a few years and together with all the Christmas stuff that the kids had made, I had boxes of decorations. Then we had our fire. The only Christmas decoration to survive was the nativity. So that was the year 1991 I decided to become not just a hostess but a demonstrator. Being a demonstrator you got a huge box full of Christmas decorations a $300 value, and all you had to do was have $300 in sales and you got to keep all your stuff! Anyone who has done home parties knows how awful it can be, especially if you HATE public speaking. To kick off my new career, I had a booth at the “Phelan Phamily Phun Days” Labor Day weekend extravaganza! I booked one party, or to be more precise my son Brian booked a party. I made a deal with him, if he would watch the booth while I walked around and looked at the other booths, I’d share any profits with him from any bookings he made. I think he ended up with a stuffed duck with red Santa slippers, because the profits from the party he booked were pretty much eaten up in gas to get to that party, because it was out at the Marine Corps. Logistical Base in the boonies of Barstow. Fortunately the $50 cost of the booth was deferred because Randy did some electrical work for the community center where the event was held. All together I did okay, I at least made the $300 kit money, and I also got a lot of gifts to give away too. I would dread going to a party, but once I was there and I would set everything up, and start playing a game I could start to enjoy myself. One of the home parties was in Orange County near my Auntie Em’s house, which was very handy because we still didn’t have electricity or running water yet so Keri and I took the opportunity to shower and blow dry our hair, what a treat that was! Em was amazed at how fast we took our showers, you’d be surprised at how fast you can wash your hair and everything else when you’re using a tea kettle to heat up the water and then mix it with cold to pour over yourself, not exactly a Calgon experience, but it gets the job done.

I used my singed nativity with my kit as a display and took a lot of orders for them. I got several calls that the wrong nativity had been sent. When I compared the new ones with mine I saw that although mine had made it through the fire, it had been discolored by the heat and smoke and looked like an antique. One customer actually returned hers even after I explained why my nativity looked different from the new ones.

After that year it took me several years to want to do it again, not mention I have somehow managed to accumulate more Christmas decorations than I had before the fire. We tried doing it again, but as an online thing, it was before ebay, and so it didn’t go very well. And now Christmas Around the World/House of Lloyd is a thing of the past. They went out of business. Now we have to buy all our cheesy Christmas decorations made in China from Walmart. To be cont…