Christmas is no exception. Every year I start planning the next Christmas in January.
It makes me feel good to know that others enjoy the things I do also. I LOVE decorating for all holidays and especially Christmas. I love when my older kids come home and say things like, "now it feels like Christmas!".
I love hearing my kids friends say how much they love to be in our home. Trent has a new friend this year and the other day Kurke overheard him say to Trent that he really loves being in our house, especially at Christmastime, because his mom and dad do not decorate or bake and they didn't really even want to put up the tree this year, but being at our house made it feel like Christmas for him. Wow. It made me a bit sad for this sweet little boy, but also very happy that he could come to our home and be surrounded by Christmas!!
This year we had several events at our house during the month of December and it was soooooo fun for Kurke and I! We love sharing our home with our friends and ward family. I am so grateful for a wonderful husband who is my dedicated partner in everything we do - we got the house ready together, many times this month! I know I can always count on him.
I got this new Santa face this year and I have to admit I love the traditional Santa and his big pink chubby cheeks! He's sparkly too - And we all know about things that sparkle!!
We had the Relief Society Christmas party here and it was so much fun. I loved the Theme "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...". The RS ladies did such a wonderful job. They are all so talented. They had the cutest decor on the food table, their song was sooo fun (and they had blue satin ribbons on), and they had a sweet little "brown paper package all tied up with string" as a gift for each one of us.
We all brought something that was our own "favorite thing" as a gift exchange item and it was wonderful to learn more about all the women who came and what they enjoy in life. There was a lot of chocolate - ha ha.
Relief Society Christmas Party
Kurke took these panoramic photo's with his phone - Now that is a great feature.
Whoooo Hoooooo!
Kurke took these panoramic photo's with his phone - Now that is a great feature.
Whoooo Hoooooo!
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The next party was our Bishopric Christmas party. What a blast!
In the past we have always done a dinner with just the adults but this year we thought it would be fun to have all the families over for a night of fun.
It was so much fun to have a whole bunch over kids running all over our house and having a great time together, eating and joining in the games.
We did a Snowman Relay and it was a crack up. We had 5 teams and a pile of supplies including rolls of toilet paper, a variety of hats, mittens and other "decor". We ended up with some pretty cute snowmen and snow women! And it was harder than it looks to get that toilet paper "snow" around your snowperson. to stay on.
Socializing, cute kiddo's and, of course, Kurke found a baby and she is a cutie - Our friends new granddaughter - so sweet!
One of our FAVE - Minute To Win It - games is this one where you start with a cracker or cookie on your forehead and you have to be the first one to wiggle it down your face, using nothing but your face, and get it into your mouth in 1 minute. Can I just say HIL-A-RIOUS every.single.time!! These are the pictures to prove it! And, oh man, the kids really got into this one too!
Our winners included Trent Gray, Laura, both of the Weekes with Heather getting it in a record 7 seconds - WOW!
We played a few other games and we also decorated Gingerbread houses.
I had such a great time making Gingerbread, eating gingerbread, and putting together the houses for about 10 days before the party. I also made a bunch of Gingerbread men for the kids to decorate as well. There was a house for each family, a bunch of frosting and candy. I loved watching the teamwork and they turned out beautiful.
We have such great families in our ward and I am so happy we can call them friends!
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We had the youth over twice during the month once for a planning meeting for next years combined activities and then on another night the Young Women came over for a little party and the end of the year DVD. I had so much fun putting that together and it seriously made me cry. We have such wonderful Young Women and leaders and all the fun they had during the year, the service they gave was just great. They ended up wanting to watch it 3 or 4 times.
The night before they came over I decided to do another batch of gingerbread men so that I could wrap them and give them out to the girls. I enlisted my families help for decorating. Kevin and Katie were already home from school and Dad and Rache'l came over and along with Trent and his friend Austin, we all decorated cookies and had a ball. I never knew my family was quite so creative but I did know they were funny. We had the "ugly sweater cookie - hilarious" and the two headed gingerbread monster (Katie is holding those), and there is a close up of Dad's "swimmer". Actually pretty clever to pull one leg off, turn it sideways to make it look like it was swimming and the swim cap is sooo cute - ha ha!
The girls loved the cookies. I had put them in a basket but they wanted to take them out and look at them all before they chose. It was a fun night.
This is our picture from The Mall Game this year. We were given some very unique hats - They definately were calling out for a picture :-D
1 comment:
Your decorations look lovely and it looks like you had a lot of fun.
I don't start planning in January like you do but I do love making my family happy. I do each Christmas like it was my last one and try to make it very special!
Tomorrow I will be starting to take the decorations down.
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