Ward Christmas Party {Church} 2010

Well it finally came to fruition! Our church's Country Christmas! It took months of planning and hours of decorating and cooking (no cooking for us this year THANK GOODNESS) but we finally pulled it off. This past Saturday our church celebrated the birth of our Savior with brisket, fried turkey, some crunchy, cheesy potatoes (don't know what they're called but were super yummy and I HAVE to get that recipe) green beans, rolls, apple crisp and cookies! All of it was delicious! A feast fit for kings I tell ya. It was a rip roarin' good time. The evening started by having the children visit with Santa in one of the rooms in the church. Sergio and I went by on Friday evening to set up the tree in that room and the rest of the ladies of the Activities Committee finished it off. It looked gorgeous!

(all these pics were taken with my cell phone so they aren't that great)

Then we decorated the Children's Room a bit. This room was to be used to play some snowman bowling,

pin the nose on the snowman and snowball toss. Sergio made the wooden snowman for the snowball toss game in one night! I think it turned out so cute. It now sits on our front porch :)

Sergio delivering the Snowman :) Notice the Cowboy theme.

                                         Of  course the snowman is also a member of our church Hee hee

                                        Sheriff Snow proclaiming his trust in GOD! It's the details people!

Notice the belt buckle has a hole. This is where the "snowball" was thrown through. Actually they were giant marshmallows wrapped in plastic. The kids had so much fun playing this game.

We also had coloring pages and paper ornaments and stickers for the kids to decorate and color.

The tablescape in the dining area (gym) were tables covered in butcher paper, tin cans filled with crayons and straw hats and bandanas for centerpieces.

In a small section of the gym/dining area we set up a storytelling/singing corner. It was decorated with a faux fireplace, tree, rocking chairs, lights, and a rug. This is where "Granma and Granpa" sat and read us some inspirational Christmas stories. You know about the REAL meaning of Christmas.

Ward Granma and Granpa's living room scene

                                                           With lights :)

                                        I loved all the decorations-right down to the homemade quilts!
                                      (the ornaments on the tree were all handmade of cloth and wood)The stories were interspersed with live singing by member of the church. It was so nice to hear those songs and stories.

After the opening program, dinner was served! And not a minute too soon. I know the kiddos were dying of hunger by now, my kids were already nodding off ~what with the dimmed lights and soft Christmas music~ YIKES!!

Right before dessert, we all took turns singing a section of the 12 days of Christmas. The entire room erupted in song trying to outdo each other when their "part" was up. My grandmother was able to attend for the third year in a row and she even had a big smile on her face while all the singing (and shouting) was going on.

It was a fun time and I appreciate more and more all the hard work that goes into planning an event like this or ANY event for that matter. You see in our church everyone volunteers. Nobody gets paid. Not the ministry (Bishop and his counselors), not the people who clean the church, not the Youth Leaders, no one gets paid (there are over 300 members in our congregation alone, there are 3 congregations that meet in our building). And that's what makes it so special. We all do it because we love it. We love each other and we love to serve.

That is what Christmas is all about :)