News and photos

Issue No 40:
18 December 2006

Welcome to our fortieth PartyChitChat. Just to let you know our news first:

• We have created play versions for 10 to 12 guests and 12 to 16 guests for The Balmy Bahamas Cruise.
• We are still working on our "Merri Parties" book full of tips on how to run parties of all kinds. If you have any party tips you would like us to include in our book, please send us an email via info@merrimysteries.com.

In this issue, we have articles about:

• Our photo competition winners
• Decoration competition winner.

Our photo competition winners

This time we had a lot of wonderful entries, but unfortunately two of our winners were not able to send us signed permission forms in time so we have not been able to include them, so instead of four winners we only have two. We would like to thank everyone who entered. The 2 winners are:

• Vickie Beck (USA) for a group photo from her Mystery In The Library party
• Darlene Breland (USA) for a group photo from her Murder On The Prairie party.

We are commencing a new competition with a closing date of 1 February 2008 (see photos.htm for details).

Our decoration competition winner

The winner is Billie Sue Pennington (USA) for the bat decorated birthday cake she created for her Celebrity Celebrations party (see below).

We are commencing a new competition with a closing date of 1 February 2008 (see decor.htm for details).

Billie Sue sent in this feedback:

Hi Stephanie,

Our group of 12 couples is called "Fun Luvin' Friends" and we live in a gated community in Florida. Yeah, a bunch of ole' retirees! We do 4 big parties each year and each of us invites other couples to join us.

Using your suspect and famous guest lists, and pictures of the real stars that I'd found on the internet, we decided upon our guest list. The pictures were given to the people along with their invitation.

We did the invitations in August which gave them plenty of time to find vintage clothing. Many of them told me that planning their costumes was almost as much fun as the party! Found great deals at second hand stores. Example, Ginger Rogers & Barbara Eden found perfect outfits....$2 each!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time and a turn out of more than 100 people all dressed as movie stars. Well, I'll take that back....one couple came in plain clothes with name tags saying "party crashers"!

Our hall was decorated in red and black for the glamorous affair....complete with red carpet entry! Since it was a "birthday" party, we had a beautiful "fake cake" [see picture opposite] and our prizes were wrapped as "birthday" presents. When it was discovered that the host was dead, we decided to give away his "birthday presents".

We didn't do the trivia game, but I passed out many of the "answers" to people I thought wouldn't pass the real clues around. That added a different angle in some cases as they learned additional info about the suspects.

One guest wore his chef's outfit and manned the food tables most of the evening. We brought out fresh plates of finger food, throughout the evening which kept people mingling around the 6 round tables in the middle of the hall.

We took turns going to the stage and did the suspect interaction parts (about every 10 minutes). When Judy Garland began singing (verrrrrry poorly!) Bob Marley ran to the stage and speaking in accent and holding his ears, took the mich from her!

At the end when we opened the envelope to solve the mystery, our Police woman, suddenly appeared with handcuffs, slapped them on the murderer and dragged him/her? away!

The one we did last year required several practices, and the suspects expected kinda' the same thing this year. They even got a little irritated with me because they thought my secrecy was going to make them make them look un-prepared! They finally understood once the party began to roll.

Thanks again for a great script!!

Billie Sue Pennington

Here is Vickie's photo from her "Mystery In The Library " party:

Darlene sent in this feedback about her "Murder On The Prairie" party:

"Hi, I'm Darlene Breland.

Attached is Murder on the Prairie towns people photo for your current photo contest. I plan a lot of parties for our church bible study class and this was one of the best according to the participants.

Everyone dressed the part and really got into character. We billed it as a spaghetti western and served, what else, spaghetti & meat balls. We're all looking forward to our next one.

Thanks, Darlene