"It'll be like Wedding Crashers... only, you know, with Christmas parties."

Jamie laughed, but I meant business. See, I believe it's one of the world's great injustices that a girl with a closet full of little black dresses - a girl who loves nothing more than to get gussied up and spun around on a dance floor - doesn't have a fancy holiday party to go to. Think Tiny Tim without his Christmas goose.

Totally tragic.

Friday night, Laura, Jamie and I sat around a table at the Tipp, discussing how we were going to right this colossal wrong. I was willing to do what it took. If crashing wasn't going to work, well, I was this close to hiring myself out as an escort for the season. And that's when the Universe intervened.

They'd been watching us from across the bar, and had even performed not-so-sly flybys of our table on the way to the men's room. But when the two older guys finally came to talk to us, it wasn't to deliver some cheesy, overused line. It was to deliver invitations. To a black tie charity event.

"We have to go!"

Laura couldn't be persuaded, but after a little coaxing Jamie got on board. And Saturday night, after a little schedule shifting and a quick wardrobe change, Jamie and I were on our way to White Rock Lake, primped, preened and... a little nervous.

"This is only mildly crazy, right?"

"No," Jamie said. "It's totally crazy. But that's what I love about it."

At worst, we figured, the party would blow. We'd go in, make a charitable donation, take advantage of the open bar, get bored and go home early. And at best? Well, two hours later, when I found myself on my fifth glass of holiday punch and on round II of The Plastic Surgery Game (fifty cents for spotting an obvious boob job; a buck for a face lift) with a dozen or so men in tuxedos, I decided the evening had more than qualified for an at best rating. The rest of the night is just a little fuzzy, but it involves champagne and dancing and breakfast at 3AM in Cafe Brazil with Jim the Insurance Guy and his sidekick, Trey the iPhone Man.

My feet are blistered, my head is thumping, and lethal amounts of Pad Thai were required to soak up the mess of holiday punch that was still sloshing around in my stomach when I crawled out of bed this afternoon. But isn't that the way all good holiday stories end? Well, that and a good goosing.

God bless us, every one.