Christmas parties

Husband's work party was first to celebrate.  We drove south to the other facility, enjoying the long drive as we went.  Life has been hectic lately so we spent most of it catching up, making plans and doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon on my phone.  We arrived at the site for the new plant, admired the newly poured foundation and then the men wandered the site, explaining and dreaming while the women (and a few men) hid in the cars from the bitter cold.  We went to a restaurant, gathering around a long table and catching up with friends.  I had the best burger (possibly of my life) and enjoyed the "games", going around the table describing our best work moments of the year, wishes for next year and more.  We lounged and talked and had a great time.  After dinner the crowd dispersed and we began the drive home, stopping for a late parade in one of the local small towns and a talk to enjoy the Christmas ambiance.

My work's Christmas party was a week later, held in the same hall as our wedding reception.  We packed the room and with our large staff being so diverse, I only know and regularly work with half of the employees.  But we talked and greeted friends and thoroughly enjoyed the huge banquet of food that had been prepared.  We ended up eating with the "zumba girls" and their spouses.  I know them all fairly well and had a ton of fun talking with them through our dinner.

We hosted our mostly annual fondue and white elephant party.  It's just a few couples, friends we've celebrated with for years and known forever.  We did add a new couple to the group and had a blast.  We had a sitter gather all the kids upstairs while we meandered through cheese fondue, cheesy potatoes and a honey baked ham.  Then we gorged ourselves on a dessert fondue, with milk chocolate, white chocolate and caramel.  Despite being good friends, our busy lives with jobs and ids in various locations make it hard to get together, so we enjoyed talking about recent changes or accomplishments.  We had our White Elephant exchange and it was really good this year, with a variety of fun items and lots of laughing and teasing.  Once we finished, we invited out kids down to enjoy the dessert fondue as well and play with them until everyone reluctantly left. 

For Relief Society Enrichment, we had a Christmas brunch.  I consider myself the co-chair of the committee and had met with the chair a few times to plan food and the brief musical program.  I arrived Friday evening to help set up and was impressed by her vision.  She went all out, decorating the hall beautifully.  It was classy and elegant and inviting.  Definitely more work than we needed to do but was so beautiful that it felt like a sweet luxury for our hard working sisters.  I prepared three different breakfast casseroles (all with high compliments, yay!), served with fruit and french toast muffins.  We ate and talked for the first half hour and then introduced our short program.  As a group we sang O Little Town of Bethlehem, and then interspersed with a narrator, a couple sang Mary and Joseph (music compliments of my fantastically talented aunt), a trio sang Mary's Lullaby and as a group we sang the First Noel with a violin accompaniment.  Our last number was a slideshow I had created to illustrate another one of my aunt's songs, One Small Boy with rich and beautiful meaning, perfectly highlighting the message we wanted to touch our sisters--that in celebrating His birth, we celebrate His gift and dedicate ourselves to Him.  We closed with that final message as it was the perfect ending and anything else would have distracted from the Spirit.

Since then, Husband used the slideshow when he went home teaching to two families.  And then we had several requests for a copy of the slideshow that sisters wanted to share with their families.  So, with my aunt's permission, I had uploaded it to YouTube.  The song is written and performed by Cori Connors, the artwork was borrowed primarily from LDS.org (a few pieces from other public domain sites).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPPMNGKa8I8

For more Christmas festivities, we also got to help with a Secret Santa project.  My mom works for a school and is a large part of the project.  She had been given the names and information of several families, along with a moderate budget to help provide Christmas.  So we joined her for a crazy fun shopping expedition and then spent several hours wrapping gifts before delivering them to families.  This is my favorite Christmas tradition from my childhood and we've tried to make sure our girls got the opportunity to participate in it as well.  L loved helping to pick out the clothes for the girls and A helped pick out Barbies and toys.  E mostly ran around giggling and grabbing anything she could reach.

We joined Husband's family, including recently arrived cousins for a downtown adventure.  We rode Trax, the public transport train, mostly just for fun, watching the girls delighted expressions.  We wandered briefly at the Disney store in City Creek before crossing the street to Temple Square.  We walked around the Joseph Smith building and visited the Christus while we waited for the lights to turn on.  Then we had to hurry to dinner which was a birthday celebration for Grandpa at Braza Grill.  The girls and I claimed a table on the end, sharing it with their cousins and their mom so our husband's could sit closer to family.  The food was amazing.   Husband reported that E devoured everything her gave her.  At our table, A ate very little but L was eager to try everything that was brought to us.  After we had our fill, we had some birthday festivities including chocolate mustaches on sticks and presenting gifts.  One of Grandpa's favorite hobbies is rocks and fossils so to celebrate his 60th birthday, the theme was 60 Rocks!  Each guest brought a rock or fossil, something with meaning to their relationship.  L gave grandpa a fossil we found on a beach in Mexico on a trip with Grandpa, A gave him a stone from Temple Square (where Husband and I as well as Grandma and Grandpa were married) and E gave him a piece of petrified wood (he has two stumps in the front yard, one small and one large which he declared his grandpa and grandkid seats).  Long ago I collected some pebbles from Normandy Beach in France and since Grandpa and I often trivia each other on historical events, I thought that was an appropriate symbol of our common interest.  And Husband gave him a piece of granite from a particular location that has great significance to the family.  Many other rocks were similarly presented, even some from his childhood.

And for one last party, last night we went to a neighbor's house and spent the evening with several other couples from the neighborhood.  We shared snacks, got to know each other better, played a hilarious game similar to Charades and laughed our way through a White Elephant exchange.