8608

Tennis Party

April 2004

Cindy in Boca Raton, Florida. USA

Special Mention

TENNIS PARTY    My husband has been a tennis pro for more than 20 years and before that a tennis player and every time I planned parties he ended up talking to his tennis bodies in a corner and the rest taling to me, so this year I decided to throw a Tennis Party so he could talk to everybody about tennis and related to his own friends and not our friends.    I invited tennis pros that worked with him in the past, tennis players that he coached, tennis pros that currently work with him and tennis partners that played satelite tournaments or studied with him at Florida State University representing it in tennis, that way everybody had something in common and could relate to each other's conversation.     I took all my center pieces at home out and put his practice tennis balls on them, decorated all the tables around our house with green plastic tablecloths and taped a 2 inch correcting tape on them simulating the lines of the tennis courts, put new grips on his old tennis raquets and used them as trays to pass ordeuvres around or just place them on the tables with clear plates on top full of cheese, nachos, salmon, peanuts, etc.      Prepared two aluminum trays with cans of fire under them, one with home made pasta and sauce that I bout at a pizza place, and another tray with Paella which a friend coocked for me, and a Ceviche (since my husband is from Ecuador and this is the typical dish there). Place these containers on top of a table that had the tennis tablecloth I designed and moved the table against a wall so on the wall I could hang tennis raquets with flags taped in the middle of the racquets made in my computer, hanging them on the wall on top of each container and writing the words Italian Open, Spaniard Open and Ecuatorian Open respectively in the middle of the flag, so each food represented an Open slam. Also had a set of wood salad fork and spoon that had a tennis ball and a racquet at each end, that was used to serve the food on the plates.     Place some frech breads inside his green plastic tennis basket and bought party plates in green fluorescent colors like the tennis balls and green plastic silverware.      Took out a poster framed of a very popular tennis picture of Borg and Connors in the final of a French Open and placed it on another wall.     A friend prepared for me a cake called Tres Leches where the top of the cake had green cream simulating a tennis court and even a net made with gauze and tooth spicks.     Also made some cds with music from the 70's like Eagles, Beatles, Peter Frampton, Carlie Simon, etc and label them with cd labels with a picure of a tennis player and some tennis balls and wrote Thanks for Coming to my Party and my husband's name on it and gave it to the guess when they were leaving the party. I also took the center of these labels and draw two lines on them simulating tennis balls and colored them fluorescent green and placed them on top of our tables.     On top of that, my husband is a red wine drinker, so I asked everybody to bring a bottle of red wine which was used to fill my husband's wine holder rack and for the guests to drink too, saving money on alchool...     My husband had never been so happy in his life! even the guests did not stop talking and surprised to see other tennis pros, players that they never thought knew each other and had stories in common.     AH, of course, I was dressed in a tennis outfit and the guys who most of them did not bring their wives where dressed casual with some tennis touch since they were asked to dress in tennis outfits but were sick and tire of dressing like that everyday...     One of the guests filmed during the party and I took pictures of my husband with each of his friends which later a duplicated and mailed to each guest.     And the best of all, is that the same night on TV they were playing the final of the US Open, so people watched it without volume with music in the background since the tennis players that were at the party said that the worst thing to do is to hear what the comentators say during a tennis match when you know so much about tennis! How about that?

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