Merry Christmas Eve

We had more fun caroling tonight than we've ever had. I think the costumes helped! Our friends Terry and Joe Trombley and Trena and Matt Nalley spent the evening with us and were good sports about dressing up and caroling around our neighborhood! Ariann, Travis, Kaity, Brayden and Bryce have to go along with it or suffer the rath of Mom/grandma! We're exhausted. To look at the house tonight you would never know we spent two days trying to get it ready for company. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and we will just let the mess wait until we have more energy. Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your Christmas Eve was as enjoyable as ours was. Love you all!

OKAY, Everyone knows I am technologically disadvantaged!

Sorry about this mess. In order for it to make any sense, you will have to scroll down. Everything is backwards. Start reading where the title says, "An Old FAshioned Christmas....What Fun! and then work your way back to this point. If you just give up I don't blame you!

Last batch.....I promise.

For the final skit, everyone gathered back in the cultural hall where Joseph Smith's family gathered around the fire to hear Joseph read the "Christmas story" from Luke. With Emma's help, the children acted out the nativity. I am so disappointed that I didn't get a picture of them after they had put on their "Mary, Joseph, Shepherd and angel costumes." Their mother said she would get me a copy of her's.

Wonderful petafores were set up beautifully in two different rooms and hot cocoa was available. There was also a room for professional pictures with a backdrop, "A stary, stary night." I'm anxious to see that picture. It feels great to have this project behind and I'm so thankful for all the many willing and talented hands that helped pull it off! I just wish all of my family and friends who seem a country away, could have enjoyed it with us! Merry Christmas everyone.

More Pictures

This was our history of the Christmas Card Room. Stacey Fisher, our resident artist helped the children make a card.

Our Carolers were minus a tenor because he got a migraine on the drive to the church but they sounded beautiful in spite of his absence. What talented singers! I hope you are enlarging all of these pictures!

Chrissy, Robin's wife was another hostess. She bought herself this amazing costume over the internet. They looked great.

Trena and I learned lots of new things about sewing as we tackled the Old Fashioned Santa Suit together. What a project! Santa shared the room with Gary and told the children about an old-fashioned treat called a Christmas cracker. All the primary children got one at the conclusion in this room and everyone got an old fashioned candy stick.

OOPs, I guess the last Santa statue we were borrowing never showed up! Oh well!

An Old Fashioned Christmas...What Fun!

I haven't blogged in a long time and the following pictures will help explain why. Last night was the ward Christmas Party that we have been working on since before Halloween. I have had LOTS of help. Ariann has been a trouper. I litterally mean "trouper". We have been all over creation looking for treasures to turn into costumes or props. What fun we've had! I think we managed to "make a Christmas memory."

Gary was Clement Moore, the writer of Twas the Night Before Christmas. He read the story and everyone got to see the beautiful pictures on a power-point presentation.

Jerry and Carol Wilson were 2 of our 6 host/hostesses. They actually rented their own costumes and they looked fantastic!

This was our quartet practicing for the song that introduced the theme. "Have An Old Fashioned Christmas this year."

Here, hosts were introducing Charles Dickens who told a little background of "A Christmas Carol."

This room was our doll maker shop. Melanie Ambs' character told the story about when she was a little girl living in a mining camp in Colorado with her father. Supplies were scarce and the snows were deep. That year Santa brought her a doll carved from a white potato. It was such a beautiful story and she told it so believably that it made me cry. After the party Kaity said to me, "Grandma, my favorite part was the 'doll story'. It made me cry!" We were in different groups and saw that performance at different times so Melanie must have had a beautiful spirit with her each time she told the story.