14 Days of Festivity: Day 8

A Very Bloggy Holiday

My online-turned-real-life friend Farrah hosted a blogger holiday party on behalf of her site, DuPage Mamas.  


Of course the first picture I took was of the food.  These cupcakes were purchased by the site KidGrade.  (Remember I'm a KidGrade ambassador?  And Farrah is too.) 

Prior to the party, Farrah and I talked over Google chat about how much more important it is to make a human connection than an online connection.  I mean, not that the two are mutually exclusive--obviously the people connecting online are humans.  But I think you can tell when people at a gathering are more interested in the online connection than the connection with the humans in front of them--people spend most of the party on their mobile devices, tweeting and Facebooking and Instagramming with the party's hashtag and the names of the relevant people and brands.

In contrast, I think at this party Farrah pulled off the human connection aspect perfectly.  People were legitimately talking to one another about real issues, and the mobile phone usage was minimal.  There were no name tags where people were identified in four different ways (name, blog name, URL, twitter handle).  The party didn't have a hashtag.

It was just real human beings at a real party.  It was totally festive and represented exactly the kind of human connection that I believe is the true force behind mom blogs.

Here is Farrah (far right) with some other bloggers:

Naturally, I have another picture of the food.  This is the dinner buffet: pizza, salad, chicken, and pasta:

Some of my other blogging friends:

Here's Farrah at the raffle prize table.  She gave out like 20+ raffle prizes, which were generously donated by the companies on this poster she's going all spokesmodel with:

Thanks, Farrah, for a great affair!