The Third Annual Piano Party

This year’s piano party was scheduled for the Monday after we got back from our weekend with cousins in Minneapolis.  Unfortunately, it was a snowy day, which prevented some students from being able to come to the party, and a few more were sick, but the students that did come had a great time.  The students that missed were all very, very angry with their parents.  According to their parents, the anger stemmed mainly from missing out on the feast of snack foods available at the party:  cheese, crackers, veggies and dip, fruit, brownies, and cookies, cookies, cookies!

I spent the morning and early afternoon of party day feverishly baking and making decorations.  I am really, really bad at throwing parties, and if the party had been for any other reason than to show some love to my wonderful students, I probably would have ended up in tears at my inability to not throw a good party.  My piano students, though, are gracious guests and they have so much fun that it makes the preparation so worth it in the end.  This year I wanted to have a few simple decorations at the party, and I love garlands and bunting.  I looked on the internet for some different ideas, and there were so, so many ideas.  Because I didn’t have a lot of time on my hands, I went with what I thought were two easy ideas.  First I tore pieces of decorative tape and adhered them to string, and then cut the ends so they were even and cute.  I thought this would be the easiest of the ideas, but it turned out that making this garland took FOREVER.  I managed to bake 130 cookies in the time it took to put this thing together!  It was tedious, but in the end it did look nice across the arch from the foyer into the piano room.  The second set of garlands, thankfully, went much better.  I used a circle punch to cut out a bunch of colored paper circles, and then sewed them together into a big string on the sewing machine.  It was so quick and easy, especially compared to the tape garland.  One string was hung in the dining room picture window, and the other across the door from the foyer to the dining room.  These garlands looked especially colorful and festive, and we’ve kept the one in the window up since the party, and moved the other one to the kitchen window because they are so fun.

Each year at the party the students choose their favorite polished piece to share with all the other kids in their age group, and then we have snacks.  The older groups of students also play music jeopardy, but the youngest group, kindergarten through second grade, eats so many snacks that there isn’t time for any games!  They are snack machines!  For them, the best part of the party is coming without any grown ups (other than me) and getting to eat whatever they want.  This year one student, a cute little kindergartener asked me to play some dinner music.  I played a really fast piece for them while they ate their snacks, and then the boys wanted to play something scary, so I played a piece about an evil gnome.  They loved it.  Another student suggest that I dance next, but I declined the offer.  They couldn’t believe that I could play tricky piano songs, but that dancing made me nervous.  They are such a hoot!  Just when the parents pop in to pick them up does all the sugar start to kick in!  That is my cue to happily wave goodbye and wish their parents luck for the rest of the day.

The parties for the older kids went great too. The jeopardy games were very intense.