Holiday Parties Galore

Ken Hatch, JJ McKay, Cathi Hatch, Patty Barrier

On my actual birthday, Ken and I went to a couple of special holiday parties.  The first was JJ McKay's annual Ho! Ho! Ho! Holiday Party at his home in Belltown.  JJ always has a huge group of friends and acquaintances invited and it is so much fun to see who we will see at his party whom we haven't seen for awhile or never met before.

Ken Hatch, Lesley Rausch, James Raisbeck

Several of the friends that we ran into at the party included Patty Barrier, Claudia & Tom Campanile, Molly & John Otter, Alison & Brad Harlow, Scott Rabinowitz, Peter Wilson, Stacy & Doug King, Dena Rigby, Aimee & Greg Vaughan and dozens of others.  Patty and I were especially thrilled with the hors d'oeuvres that included JJ's famous devilled eggs and Dick's burgers.  Yum!

JJ insisted that everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to me before we left which was embarrassing but fun too.

Carole Ellison, Gail James, Bob Cremin

Our next party was the Pacific Northwest Ballet's annual holiday party for the Board of Trustees, Members of the Barre and Stowell Society members at Sherry & James Raisbeck's exquisite estate.  The grounds were even more beautiful with more statuary than I remembered from my last time at their home. Any many of James' incredible classic cars were on display in his immaculate, well-lit garages.

Sue Grinstein, Ken Hatch, Peter Boal

And of course we saw many people that we knew at the party including PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal and wife Kelly and Executive Director, David Brown.  Peter reminded me that it was eight years ago at this holiday party when I was Chairman of the PNB Board after we had just selected him and he had agreed to become PNB's new Artistic Director that we introduced him to many of these people for the very first time.

To name just a few of the many people we saw and talked with were PNB Principal Dancers Maria Chapman and huband Brendan Kennedy, Carrie Imler and husband Hans Miller, and Lesley Rausch plus PNB supporters Suzy & Moe Krabbe, Pam & Dan Baty, Peggy & Michael Swistak, Leena & Mel Sturman, Art Mazzola, Gail James, Peter Horvitz, Aya Hamilton & Drew Welk, Lynn & Frank Lindsay, Sue & Bill Grinstein, Renee & Carl Behnke, Sandy Dunn, Carole Ellison & Bob Cremin, and dozens of others. 

The good news that Peter Boal announced was that it appears that PNB will meet its Nutcracker revenue goal, which is of critical importance in the ballet world since that revenue helps make it possible to do the other works throughout the year.  He shared a funny story about the party eight years ago when David Brown announced that we were likely to make our Nutcracker goal that year and he wondered to himself if that was important or not.  Now he definitely knows!

Once again, everyone was invited to sing "Happy Birthday" but this time David Brown and Art Mazzola, who also have December birthdays, were included in the birthday wishes along with me.

I do think it was awfully nice of JJ and PNB to plan birthday parties for me!!