The First Day of Christmas...

I just don't have it together enough to have 25+ days of Christmas fun and merriment planned and ready to go right after Thanksgiving or even by Dec. 1st. But I do love Christmas and I have found that by Dec. 14th I'm ready.

So, enter the Twelve Days of Christmas...

Yes, I am starting a day early and will be posting a couple of events that happened before the 14th and most likely will not post every day for the next 12 days but this is my tradition, thus my rules to break. :)

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... one ward Christmas party!

I am our ward's (aka-congregation) activity chairperson. I get to plan all the parties with the help of a talented committee. (So Jared didn't really give me a ward Christmas party it was more like I gave it to him: Merry Christmas, honey!).

See if you can envision it with me... (since it appears that there wasn't any room for a camera in one car and one truck full of stuff) ...lots of lit Christmas trees, large wrapped presents, a fireplace, snow, adults having conversation, children having fun, items to be donated for the local homeless shelter, songs about Christ and a visit from Santa.

Here this might help your envisioning...

I made a faux fireplace for the photo op corner with Santa. This is a pic from the directions. My fireplace looked a little different, potentially better, although I did run out of time, no fake fire.

The kids at the party were definitely cuter! :)

One activity for the kids that kept them entertain all night and I mean all night was the box snowmen. (I luuuuv Family Fun magazine) I wrapped large boxes in white craft paper, enough for 4 snowpeople, had a box full of scarves and funny hats and the kids went to town. I also put batting on the ground all around the boxes and the kids had "snowball" fights. It was easy & inexpensive to do, easy to clean up and the kids loved it!

Again, my snowpeople looked a little different, potentially better, definitely easier. Also, you need to envision the snowman being about 12 large boxes high to truly see what our snowmen were looking like that night.

There were 3 crafts for the kids to do that didn't need adult supervision. We decorated foam photo frames with Christmas stickers for their pics with Santa. We made Christmas cards with cute stamps and washable ink.

Then button wreaths.

The kids' wreaths looked a lot better than even Martha Stewart's example.

I can't find the original website but don't use wire or floral tape like all the other websites say. Use pipe cleaners...their the best! The more I use pipe cleaners, the more I love them!

Note: Once again, Aurora slept through the whole party.

(Friends in the Bluegrass ward, if you have pics of the party...I would like to have some!)