The Ward Christmas Party

We had our ward Christmas party last night. Nate is the activities committee chairman in our ward and, as he has told me many times, I am his committee.

Planning activities always requires a bit of work, but the Christmas party is definitely the hardest one of the year. I was very proud of Nate this year. He actually had a meeting with his committee members (Nate hates having meetings--he'd much rather just do it all himself) and made some assignments. There were a couple of people who didn't carry out their assignments, but I guess that's just going to happen we took care of it. But we also had a lot of help this year, much more than last year anyway.

Anyway, so back to the party. Nate wanted to do breakfast for dinner this year. We hired a caterer and had biscuits with country sausage gravy, fresh fruit, and scrambled eggs with ham and cheese. We also asked everyone to bring their favorite dessert to share. We love doing dessert this way because we always get a big variety of treats and there's always plenty for everyone.

The food turned out great. I had several people asking me for the recipe for the gravy. Our only problem was that we ran out of biscuits. Apparently Nate's activities draw quite the crowd. Last year we had around 200 people at the Christmas party. So that's what we planned for this year. Nate did a head count while people were coming through the dinner line and he counted a little over 300. I guess we learned our lesson. If we still have this calling next year, we'll be planning for at least 300 people.

We had a short little program. A family read and acted out a little Christmas poem and the primary sang a song. We also had Santa and Mrs. Claus pay us a visit and bring goody bags for the kids(we almost ran out of those too!). Then we had a room set up where the kids could make their own Christmas cards to take home. This was very popular, but very messy. I don't think we'll be doing that one again next year.

For decorations, Nate brought home a bunch of huge boxes from work and we had some women in the ward wrap them. We stacked them in the corners. At the end of the night all the kids were asking if they could take the giant boxes home with them. I just sent them to ask their parents. At the end of the night, we only had one big one left to throw away, so I guess some of the parents said yes.

Overall, the party was a success. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and we got lots of compliments.

I do just have to get one thing off my chest. It really bothers me that the kids just run wild at these things. I understand that the parents want to sit and visit and enjoy their evening, but when your kids(mostly teenagers) are throwing food around the church, playing in the primary room, or giving Santa a hard time and asking for extra treats and destroying decorations, please take a minute to be a parent and remind them how to behave. Thank you.
Oh, and also, FYI...it is not polite to take entire plates full of treats before everyone has had a chance to get their dinner. And this one was adults too.

Phew! I feel much better now.