The first Chocolate Party took place in February of 1998. The previous year, I'd thrown a housewarming party and hit on the idea of going through my cookbooks, pulling out every recipe called "Death By Chocolate" (I think there were four of them), and baking them all. The party and the desserts were big hits, and pretty much everybody there agreed that it'd be a fine thing if we did this every year.

Thus the Chocolate Party was born.

The 2000 party was the first one in my new house (that was the year we ordered Indian takeout for 40, and much "merriment" ensued).

The 4th Annual party, in 2001, brought us our first catered dinner (from Southwest Burrito) and started the website. Unfortunately, it also brought a need to limit the invite list, and we hated having to do that.

So in 2002 we decided to rent a hall. We settled on what we thought was a nice big VFW hall in Edison, but thanks to a bureaucratic mixup, turned out to be the smaller (and smokier!) American Legion hall instead. Despite some last-minute running around and redirecting of guests, everybody got there in one piece each, and we had a blast. There was even dancing!

For the 2003 party, we decided to start planning earlier and do some research on hall rentals. This paid off in spades, and we discovered the fabulous Somerset (Station 56) Fire Hall. The hall, and the catering from Pooja, worked out so well that we came back the following year. The 2003 party also featured a brief musical interlude by The Right Bastards (for whom Skyler played and sang some), balloons, and the notorious Dead Man's Wine.

By 2004, some of our friends came to us asking if we'd like to have them rustle up some decorations for the party too. We said, "Wow, really? You'd do that?" and before we knew it, the Fam had put together a whole "picnic" theme for us! We responded with things like the Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Cookies and a few other such silly desserts.

We changed things up a bit in 2005, and invited a gang of our friends to help us out with the baking. We also switched from Saturday evening to a Sunday afternoon setting, and the Fam (back for another decoration run!) architected a lovely Greco-Roman Classical Chocolate God/dess motif for us. Lijah even created a Chocolate Goddess logo for the occasion, and we printed up T-shirts and magnets with her on them! We did have a minor mishap when a block of unsweetened chocolate got labeled as "semisweet", and thus sabotaged the fondue and made for some truly... stunning... petit-fours. But we had a blast anyway.

For the 2006 party, we switched back to Saturday night, and did all the baking and candymaking -for- you again. (With Deirdre, actually, since she and Shirley have become inseparable comrades in Chocolate Party prep over the years.) Skyler decorated the North Brunswick fire hall (which has become our favorite) with a multicolored cacophony of things. The menu included a "Sextuple" chocolate tart-thing that disappeared before the line ended, and an awesome array of chocolate-covered cocoa meringues.

2007 was our TENTH annual Chocolate Party, so we decided to go "all out" and declare it our version of a Black Tie occasion. We also called it the Tin Jubilee, since "tin" is the classical 10th anniversary gift material. This translated into a bunch of people arriving in a multitude of fabulous variations on "dressed up", from serious formal wear to High Goth finery to at least one tinfoil hat! We pitched in and gave tuxedo T-shirts to the younger kids, bowties and fake pearls to the rest. The desserts featured some new flirtations with old favorites, a number of citrus/chocolate combinations, and a set of truffles that had the intensity freaks raving.

2008 saw us moving again, to the River Road Fire Hall in Piscataway. Sadly, the North Brunswick fire company had stopped renting out their hall. But it was a splendid time anyway, and the firefighter who was on duty as bartender was happy to entertain whoever wandered into the "lunch room". Ben Silver did a little performing with his audio loop box, and we got some truly excellent photos (which we'll have up on the site Real Soon Now!). Au Bon Pain came through again with excellent sandwiches, and this time we had ingredients lists as well. The 2008 party was also an experiment in food safety techniques and alternative ingredients: we pasteurized all eggs that we served uncooked, and found some vegan and gluten-free recipes that turned out wonderfully. (Did you know that silken tofu makes an excellent base for rich chocolate frosting?)

2009 brought a new set of challenges: Skyler sprained his ankle the previous fall and complications landed him in the hospital only a week before the party! But with some amazing help from several fabulous volunteers, we managed to stay on schedule and welcome him back to a humming kitchen and a Twelfth Annual Chocolate Party that was lots of fun. Our search for a better venue had taken us back to the Somerset Fire Hall (from 2003-04), and diverting away from our usual party weekend into early March. 2009 was also a year of new recipes in a French-inspired vein, with interesting techniques and sophisticated flavor combinations.

2010 was a year of ups and downs, health problems, big hopes, and life changes for us and many of our loved ones. We settled on a new (and hopefully conflict-free) weekend, and did our best to kick off our "Lucky 13" Chocolate Party with a bang. 2009's Caramelized Cinnamon Hot Chocolate was such a hit that we were forced (forced, I tell you!) to reprise it the very next year.

2011 found us partying with our biggest crowd ever, and watching folks from our different walks of life get acquainted. "Willy Wonka's Chocolate River" (the fan nickname for the caramelized cinnamon hot chocolate) officially became a regular thing, and the chocolate & bacon cupcakes were a big hit.

2012 brought together people from different communities, with more representation from Shirley's co-workers and some new friends mingling with the "old guard" of people who have been with us from the start. We invented Ninjabread Men and Key Lime Pirates for the occasion, and much wackiness ensued!

2013 came with lots of changes. For starters, Martin had been born! He was three months old at the party, and loved every minute. We loved being able to introduce him to you all. We turned the party into an open-contribution extravaganza because of the baby, and got to try a lot of great chocolate desserts that we hadn't made.

2014 brought another "expansion pack" of the Chocolate household! Agatha was only three months old. Martin was still too young to help us bake, but gee wasn't he running around, breaking hearts, sampling the treats, and being super adorable right up until Grandma took him home to bed.

2015 saw an expansion of the kids' table (of course), a busted hot-water maker for tea (oh dear), and a number of new contributors with a whole lot of amazing desserts. There was also a sudden wave of people decorating balloons with markers: I wonder if that's going to become a "thing" now.

2016 had a smaller attendance, but a bigger chocolate table! More of our friends took the "open source" thing to heart, and we had a bunch of very adventurous recipes on display! Avocado-based truffles were a big hit, to name just one. The kids' table got bigger again, and everyone had a ball.

The 2017 party was our 20th annual, and we were delighted to see a bunch of new faces in attendance. We felt quite honored when the Mintzes laid out their Chocolate Railroad diorama in the shape of the number 20, and there were so many other lovely contributions that we lost track. But Skyler (at least) says he spent more time chatting and less time stressing than usual, and we can't complain about that!

The 2018 event saw a record turnout – we had over 100 RSVPs and started worrying about going over the Fire Hall's capacity! The party was a blast though, and the increasing number of families with active and creative children led to us tripling the size of the Craft Table. Our first-ever Vanilla Table was also a hit, and the number and deliciousness of our friends' chocolate contributions just continued to get better!

2019 saw a bunch of new faces, both co-workers from Shirley's new job and parents of Martin and Agatha's friends. We're always delighted when friends old and new get to know each other -- that's a big part of the reason for this party in the first place! We learned that the hall's capacity is actually more than we'd thought, so the need to move became less urgent.

We got so lucky at 2020's party, in that it didn't turn out to be a COVID "super spreader" event. In retrospect, the virus was already making its merry way through our local area by late February, mostly unremarked and undiagnosed, and we took a HUGE risk having the party that year. We didn't know, of course, but it was only a few weeks afterward that we locked down tight!

That having been said, we were also very lucky to get a chance to see so many of our friends just before the isolation, distancing, and loneliness of plague prevention kicked in.

The COVID pandemic has marked so many of our lives in so many ways, but we were determined to bring some Chocolate & Vanilla joy to our friends no matter what! The 2021 party took us virtual for the first time, using "gather.town" to create a conversation space and turning our usual smorgasbord into a mountain of "goodie boxes" that we shipped to you all. It was a lot of work, but we were delighted to keep the soul of the party alive, and be a gathering place for loved ones who missed each other terribly but couldn't share physical space. After the terrible Omicron wave of late 2021, we decided to keep it virtual in 2022, but we added a custom Minecraft server for the kids to enjoy while the grownups chatted in our boring old way on our boring old Gather space. We're so happy that we were able to find a way!

We returned to in-person festivities for 2023, helped by the Reformed Church of Highland Park who generously allowed us to use their event space. The change of venue meant we had to make some adaptations, and not all of them went to plan, but we were so happy to see everyone again and throw a real party. Having the stage area for kids meant their play turned into a slight free-for-all, and we ran out of drinks too soon. Still, it was a great time and the highlight of our year! (also, we successfully avoided spreading illness among the guests, which was a big relief.)

The past year has been a challenging one for us, with multiple health crises rocking ourselves and our extended family. For a while, it looked like we might have to skip a year, something we haven't done in all the years that we've been doing this. But recovery is going well, and we decided last month that we're just crazy enough to try! It feels like a celebration more than ever, just the fact that such a thing is still feasible for us. With a more chill vibe and a more scaled-back production, hopefully we can make it a party that everyone (including us) can enjoy!