A Very Merry Christmas

I have neglected my blog far too long.  I've been too busy having fun.  So, I'm going to recap a few of our Christmas celebrations.  Of course, we drove to see Christmas lights, played in the snow, and attended Christmas parties for work and school.  We had a variety of family parties.  My book club had a fun cookie exchange.  I was thankful for every Christmas activity I was able to participate in, especially considering my broken tailbone.  It doesn't give me very much trouble anymore, except that I still can't sit for more than an hour or two.   The first Christmas party I have to discuss in detail is our church Christmas party because I was in charge of most of it.

Our church party was the week before Christmas.  The theme for the ward Christmas party was "Warm Winter Memories."  Since I knew I couldn't lift hardly anything, I got the Young Women (and a few Young Men) to set up all of the tables and chairs.  The Young Men stayed after to put everything away.  We set up chairs for over 300 people.  To make it look festive, my little Benjamin suggested that we wrap the tables in wrapping paper instead of using tablecloths.  It made the whole room look like a giant Christmas quilt.  Some of the very talented quilters in our neighborhood loaned real Christmas quilts for the night, and my neighbor Machelle (who owns a quilting store) put together an awesome backdrop of quilts on the stage. 

For food, I cooked almost 90 pounds of ham and made about 13 gallons of wassail.  We got rolls, salad, and potatoes from BYU Food to Go.  Most of my committee couldn't make it to the party, but the three who did were great to help out with the cooking, serving, and cleaning. up.  Stacy also put together our service project for the night, which was making cards and notes to send to the missionaries serving from our ward.

We had a program, starting with the women who brought quilts sharing stories about the quilts.  We had stories and songs from a variety of ward members.  I spent most of that time in the hall, along with a couple of other concerned adults, trying to keep the kids in the gym.  Oddly enough, most of the younger kids were sitting nicely with their parents or in the front of the gym on the floor.  But the "tweens" got rather unruly.  I had to keep kicking them out of the kitchen and classrooms, and I had to haul a bunch of boys out of the girls' bathroom.  But after the incidents in Payson hit the news, I was only relieved that we had been diligent at keeping an eye on everyone at our party.  You can read that story at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=9110642.  And at future activities involving children, we will just be watching that much more closely.

The whole party was a lot of work as well as a lot of fun.  And thank you to everyone who helped with it!