NicoleClarisse.com: Nova Charity Christmas Rager

This year Hermela and I decided to throw a Christmas party for all our friends. This area that we call "Nova" is like a bubble; most of our friends have been friends since high school, and everyone has stayed pretty close over the past 4 years. Friends are scattered all over the place, but this is one of the few times during the year that everyone is home. So Hermy and I, being the so called "PR girls" that we are, decided that we want to throw a rager and donate to charity at the same time. What a great idea right?! lol. We made everyone bring a minimum of 2 canned goods and collected donations throughout the night for Share Our Strength, a non-profit that I interned at this fall. They fight to end childhood hunger in America. We went all out! Between the two of us, Hermy and I spent over a hundred dollars on decorations and other supplies.Hermy and I knew that if we were going to ask our stingy-a** friends to donate, we needed to make sure there was boos and food for everyone to enjoy.

Daniel Lopez let us use his house as the venue because the rents were outta town. Instead of making all the food ourselves, we asked most of the girls who came to bring one dish. The spread turned out great.

Hermy made fresh bruschetta and her special rum punch with fresh fruit. I made a cherry cheesecake, German chocolate brownies and whipped cream topped with fresh cranberries and blueberrries. Alex, the Spaniard, brought pasta and made a big cake shaped like a Christmas tree. Elyse made buffalo chicken dip in a bread bowl and BBQ wings. The Schneinder girls brought their dads famous meatballs, Lindsey bought chips and salsa, and Shelby brought all the sodas and mixers, Oh! AND Gino saved the day with Georgetown Cupcakes!! I almost forgot, Elyse and Hermy made these awesome jello shots that were in the lemon and lime peels.

The turnout was awesome! So many people came out to party, and literally EVERYONE donated canned foods and money to Share Our Strength! I was super surprised and super impressed with all of my friends. They really donated a lot, and mind you the party consisted of people of all ages. I mean I didn't even know some of the people who showed up, but hey, the more the merrier. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of people and the chaos going on in that house, that I ended up getting wasted lol. I'm already a light weight to begin with, and it didn't help that I downed 4 shots right after I finished setting up, AND on an empty stomach haha. I know, you'd think I'm still in high school since I don't know how to drink. Anyways, the night was awesome, there was no conflict - BIG surprise!! minus the minor glitch with Lorianne freaking out on Gino, but what can you do. Usually there's way more drama at these things.

All in all, what I loved most about the evening, was that people from all different cliques, ages, schools, etc. came together and had a good time. There was no BS about who's allowed to come or who you can't bring. I'm so glad that no one fought with each other and everyone was able to celebrate Christmas together :) We celebrated for a good cause. Hermy sent Rosemary around the party to gather donations for Share Our Strength. For those of you who don't know Rosemary, she's this little sexy Spanish bombshell, who can knows how to pester people for money haha. And she was able to gather $105 from everyone! No let me tell you, for Nova, this is an awesome amount!!!!!! We also gathered $231 worth of canned foods, that's 10 big bags!! We donated the canned foods to the Lorton Community Action Center, which is located right behind the Lorton Library. Our party was so good, that it even got the "big time NYker" Kirk to stay in the area for New Years Eve! WHOA lol..

Hermy and I decided that we're going to make this party a yearly tradition. So get ready for next year everyone!! Check the pictures out below....

xoxo Nicole