Read the History and Peruse thePhotos!

How it all began...

A long time ago in a faraway land ...I was born. Ok, so it wasn't THAT long ago and not really THAT far away, but it just makes the story sound better. Since I was young I have always loved Christmas (even though the first 2 photos could lead you to think otherwise). Of course I liked the part about getting presents, but it wasn't just that. The day we put up (actually assembled) the tree and decorated it was always a special day to me! We would play Christmas music (We had albums back then. I remember liking the one we got free from Firestone!) My favorite song to play while decorating the tree was "We need a little Christmas" sung by Angela Lansbury! My brother would always hang an ornament way at the bottom of the tree, hanging really low... and my mom would always move it.


On Christmas morning, after we opened our presents (and took the obligatory photo of us under the tree displaying what we got), we would have breakfast. My breakfast always consisted of My mom's homemade fruitcake, which was GOOD, not like the kind you get from the store! (Maybe it was the fact that it was saturated with Brandy, that made me like it so much?) Alongside the fruitcake I would have a glass of eggnog with nutmeg sprinkled on top! (I didn't care about cholesterol in those days!) Notice the WREATH in the background of this photo that was made out of IBM computer punchcards, and then spray painted with gold paint? It's a shame we can't make those anymore, isn't it?
Or Can We? Look at one of the costumes from the "FINAL" Nog•fest in 2007.

Years Later...

...I moved out on my own. It was nice being on my own (Ok, so I lived with my brother and an Italian guy named Al). But Christmas just wasn't the same. After a few years out in the world "on my own" I decided that maybe I would start a new tradition of my own! I wanted to have a Christmas party, but I wanted it to have it's own identity. I liked egg nog and thought "Nog•fest" sounded good and sounded like fun. I was afraid to commit to anything for more than one year, so I called it "The First and Possibly Last Annual Holiday Nog•fest" (you can see a pdf of the first invitation from 1988). (Notice the nice use of fonts and color! Graphic design and I have come a long way since then.) That first year I was living with my friend Faith in a 2 bedroom apartment. We had about 20 people there. We served regular Nog with Brandy and Rum to mix in if you wanted to. Everyone got really full and sat around. (We have lighter nog now!). But, it was successful enough to continue the tradition. My niece Emily has been in every invitation since the 2nd annual Nog•fest! She is now 29! You can see Emily in her very first appearance in the Nog•Fest invitation from 1989 here.. Now you have to find her on THIS YEAR's Invitation...although the photo is from 2007, so she was only 20 then.

Eventually...

After 2 years of having Nog•fest in my apartment, my then "boyfriend" Harry said "why don't we have it at my house?" I said "OK, are ya sure?" His answer is obvious, so in 1990 we moved the party to Lacy road. I always wore Christmassy outfits to the party, and I eventually got Harry to as well (he will wear whatever I tell him to wear basically!). In 1991, we were decorating the day of the party and Harry said "hey! why don't we have a picture room where people can take their pictures?" I said "Are ya sure?" (since it was HIS house after all), and he said "sure!". So we quickly created a makeshift picture room with a backdrop that was too narrow, But it was fun anyway! As the years went by, Harry asked me more questions, like "Why don't we have people wear noggy costumes and have a parade of costumes and a costume contest?" and "Why don't we have a gift exchange?" (which we no longer do) and "Since the party is getting so big, why don't we have a food drive?". He also asked me the real question I was waiting for: "Will you marry me and we can have Nog•fest together forever?" I said "YEAH".

As the Years Continued to Pass...

...more questions came up like "How can we have all these people (with costumes on) in our house without having a fire or something?" So we moved it to our Harry's Old office buidling. It seemed that every year Nog•fest got bigger and better (and also more time consuming). The invitation, the decorations, prizes, costumes, photos, food, drink, you name it! We even had a stage built by our friend Fishhead Ted for our parade of costumes.


We had had a small version of the UW Marching band at the party several times (thanks Billy!) and many very creative and outlandish costumes over the years. Every year we had a costume we have never had at Nog•fest before! We loved it and considered it our Christmas gift to all of our friends. But we kept asking ourselves "How long can we continue to do this?" Well, we had our "FINAL" not fest in 2007, it was the 20th consecutive Nog!

Fast Forward to 2016...

Well actually to 2007... We went out with a BANG! We had Pat McCurdy entertain us, and about 25 members of the UW Marching band surprised us... we even had Drummers for the first time!

I had a lot of my family members there too, see the photo? Those people are all related to me! And YES, Father Nog is my DAD!
Since 2007 Harry and I have done other fun things with the "spare" time we had because of NOT having Nog•Fest. Harry bought a building for his business and moved in — in December 2011 (our new venue!), we became parade crashers, crashing several Christmas parades in full costume, We have worn our costumes to be bell ringers for the Salvation Army, and we actually have sent out Christmas cards since then, designed by Me, of course! We also have been xc skiing if there is snow in late Nov/early Dec., going to Idaho to visit and ski with our friends there, remodeled our house, and had a few other smaller parties at other times of the year...

But, people are still talking about Nog•Fest fondly, and we have been asked many times "will you bring it back?" and we never really knew.. then all of the sudden, this year we both had the sudden urge to do it! So there you go, the birth of Nog•Fest 21, eight years late!.

We hope you can make it!