Christmas Parties

I LOVE this time of year!! So much merriment and cheer! We've gone to a couple Christmas parties: the ward party and a party with friends last night. The ward party was okay. There was turkey, baked potatoes, and rolls provided by the ward and other sides/desserts were brought by members. I brought a big dish of green beans. The other sides were a very large assortment of salads - jellos and greens. The turkey was given out one or two small pieces at a time - though about 2 min after David and I were out of the line, a whole huge platter of turkey was brough out (there were only maybe 10 people left in line at this point....). I thought that was strange for the turkey to be sooooo rationed out and then have tons of it leftover at the end. Ward members acted out the Nativity and we all sang the songs together. There was the coolest Nativity set built from cardboard though. They had a few life-size camels, Bethlehem city silhouette, and the manger - straw roof and all! I thought that was neat. And there were extra costumes for anyone else who wanted to participate. Amber dressed up as a wiseman. Jade was too anxious about the whole thing to dress up. And Paisley had fun rolling around on the floor with a cup. =)

The other super fun party we went to was last night. It was an Ugly Christmas Sweater party! Hahaha! For those of you who know David and I, you'll know we of course went all out on our sweaters! It's just what we do. We found our sweaters at Goodwill and then had fun uglifying them. We totally won the prize! There was a "real" white elephant gift exchange (real meaning some random thing either found around your house or under $5) which was a blast! David and I brought a cool ceramic rooster pitcher and a weel-barrel carting gnome - both filled with candy. We ended up bringing home the pitcher (I really really like it! But I didn't open it, David stole it) and 3 bottles of very flat club soda. Well, actually, we didn't bring the club soda home....we hid them around the Lefler's home. Hahahaha!!! You're welcome Allison! =) We also played charades and Mafia. I'd never played Mafia before, but it was really fun! There was quite a bit of "heated" arguments trying to figure out who the mafia players were. We had such a blast! I'm so grateful to have good friends who know how to party!

Dave and his friend Elliot =)

The hubby's. For some reason, we never did get a picture of all the wives....

Aren't we festive? Haha