I imagined a classy party with a live orchestra and cocktail dress and heels. But Tiffa surprised me by saying, “Wear something comfortable! And colorful! We have a contest who can wear the most color, and we Wilsons like our New Year's parties raucous. Don't wear anything that will show your knickers if you bend over in case we end up playing the brown bag game. Alice complains about it every year, but it wouldn't be New Year's without it.”
I thought I was colorful enough in hot pink skinny jeans and a spangled bright blue blousy top. I even had purple feathered earrings in my ears and attached in my hair and glittery eye shadow and red lips, but Tiffa had me easily beat with tie-dyed leggings, a blinding neon-striped shirt, high-heeled orange platforms, and a rainbow clown wig. Wilson even got into the spirit of things with a shirt that wasn't blue, grey, or black. It was a long sleeved v-neck in a soft pale green. Not very loud, but at least he tried. He wore black jeans and black boots, and looked very un-professorish.
It wasn't a huge party – maybe thirty people – but everyone seemed to know each other well. There were ten or twelve other couples, in addition to Tiffa and Jack, Alice and Peter, and Wilson and me. Most of the others were Tiffa's British associates from The Sheffield. I would have expected all of them to drink their champagne with their pinkies raised, considering how proper they sounded in conversation. But they were all quite boisterous and easy-going, especially after a few drinks.
The night started with a game called Ha Ha Ha – that's what Tiffa called it. Every party-goer had been given a bracelet, which was made of a roll of stickers in all different colors. The goal was to make people laugh using a big fake “ha ha ha.” If you were successful in making a person laugh, that person had to reward you with a kiss and a sticker. If a girl made another girl laugh, she could give her a sloppy smooch, or choose a boy for that girl to kiss, or vice verse. The Ha Ha Ha champion was determined at the end of the night by the number of stickers accumulated, as well as how many you still had on your bracelet roll. I was relieved to see that the kisses were all friendly pecks on the lips and cheeks with lots of “Happy New Years!” thrown in. No one seemed to take advantage and lay a wet one on an unwilling recipient. Most people were intent on collecting stickers. The game continued throughout the night, even when other games were being played, and I became a bit of a target because the Ha Ha Ha's directed at me weren't terribly funny, and I had yet to lose a sticker . . . or give a kiss. Tiffa and Wilson kept going back and forth at each other, trying to get the other to break – occasionally cracking into guffaws that were promptly rewarded with a chaste kiss to the forehead, followed by a sticker. Tiffa quickly looked like she had the pox, her face was so dotted in stickers. Alice's Ha Ha Ha was so grating that people laughed as they cringed, which got her several kisses and stickers as well.
I don't know what I expected from a New Year's party with a bunch of Brits, but it wasn't Ha Ha Ha, and it definitely wasn't the brown bag game. The brown bag game consisted of standing on one leg like a crane, leaning over, and without touching the floor or the bag, lifting the bag off the floor using only your mouth. Each round, an inch or two would be cut off of the brown bag until there was only a thin lip of bag left. Alice ended up getting a bloody nose when she face planted into the floor. Tiffa was like a long giselle, easily bending herself in half and swooping the bag off the floor like it was a dance move she had mastered years before. Jack was out after the first round. Alice's husband Peter farted every time he made an attempt at the bag, his embarrassed “Pardon me's” almost funnier than the constant toots. Wilson attacked the brown bag game with a single-minded concentration that his sisters claimed was how he played every game, but he was out of his league after two or three rounds.
Apparently, the brown bag game was a Wilson family tradition and not an English tradition at all. The late Dr. Wilson had been the one to introduce his children to the game, and they had played it for as long as any of them could remember. It had been just over two months since I had a baby, and I could easily have begged off, claiming that I was not up for such a physical game. But I didn't want to pique the other guests curiosity or invite questions, so I joined in and found my distaste for alcohol was a real advantage, as my balance was still intact when everyone else was teetering. The final round was down to me and Tiffa, and Tiffa was talking trash, sounding like Scary Spice, as she glided in for the win.
“Ha ha ha!” she said to me, nose to nose, her eyes crossed comically, as I conceded the victory. This Tiffa was such a contradiction to Tiffa-the-Art-Connoisseur that I giggled and pushed her away.