Hi Folks! Remember last week I said that I had an epic Christmas party that I was gonna share with you all? Well here it is! Due to the fact that it was on my posting day, Wednesday, my schedule has been pushed back some, and so my Resolution and Accomplishments post will not be up until next week. But you all don’t mind, right?
So here is it, I hope you enjoy!
Wednesday morning when I woke up my throat really hurt and my head was whining, but I got up at 9 like mom asked. I dressed in my big pink skirt and Clearwater Florida hoody because I was feeling sorry for myself.
I cleaned up randomly around the house because that day was my cooking day for chores, and I did not have an assigned room.
We extended the table and decorated it a little. Then I set the meatballs to cook in barbecue sauce and pealed a huge pot of potatoes (thanks mom for helping out there.)
After making sure the house was clean I curled up in my bed and fell asleep.
About 20 minutes later Kate skipped into our room and woke me up. It was time to get dressed for the party. (I had set it up to start at noon)
Before I was fully awake, she called from the living room (she’s fast like that) “Gil and Sally are here!!!”
Oh great! I wasn’t ready for people yet! I scrambled out of bed, pulled the outfit I had picked out the day before off the hooks and raced to the bathroom to get changed.
Thankfully, mom and Steve were there and able to greet our early guests well I scrambled to get dressed. Of course, only insiders (you readers) know that I was sick and my head hurt and I had just gotten out of bed and was in a hurry to get dressed when they came, because when I came out I was pretty, smiling, and greeted them with a hug. Sally brought her little brother Nate, a ball of energy, and I was excited to get started. (Tylenol was definitely one of the best things that happened to me that day.)
So since they were about 30 minutes early, we played a house rules round of Uno, which is a favorite at my monthly get togethers (or maybe we just play it cause we do?) If you’re curious of my version of Uno House Rules, comment below. I’m sure I’ll get to posting sometime about our favorite house rules in different games.
It wasn’t too long before more people started to come.
I got a text from Rina that she was sick and wouldn’t be able to make it! Which was really sad because she was visiting from New York, but she’d miss the party.
Then people came in a pile. Dave, Georgia and her brother Nick, our friend Lisa, Isaiah, Sam, and of course Joseph. Then Julianna (our youth leader, who is actually moving to Chicago. 🙁 ) and two girls who live on our street, Daisy and Jasmine.
At that point, the only people we were waiting for were Tanya and Ethan, who (Joseph said) like to be “fashionably late” which actually meant they were finishing the game they were bringing. They also brought Ethan’s little brother Aiden.
So we ate! It was pretty crowded and I was glad that most people knew each other, cause I could only talk to so many people at a time!
Almost everybody brought a dessert or side dish, which was super helpful!
We decided to play the game Ethan and Tanya brought before we had dessert, and it was such a blast!
Tanya would read a Bible Trivia question, and the person who’s turn it was had 90 seconds to answer correctly. Everyone got a Bible to use, and if the person answered incorrectly, or ran out of time, anyone in the game had a chance to answer the question. Whoever raised their hand first had first dibs, and Julianna and Joseph were the quickest.
If the question was answered correctly, the person got the big fat rolled up gift. It was many many layers of tape, shipping tape and duct tape and Ethan even put glue in there! XD The person who answered correctly could open the gift until the next question was correctly answered. It was really well done! The Trivia questions were really good, not too hard, not too easy, and very good. And the gift was about the size of a soccer ball!
Sadly, Joseph had to leave in the middle of the party, so he did not get a chance to actually win the gift, because it was opened well he was gone. Lily won it! It was a GIFT CARD! Now you can imagine how many layers of shipping and duct tape there were on that thing!
It was really a lot of fun to do and well thought out. Tanya and Ethan made it up themselves! There were hardly any bugs in the system, except that since they used the trivia cards from a different game, the answers were not exact, but we adjusted.
Well done Ethan and Tanya!
Then we had dessert, which included cookies and banana bread, and chips and Christmas Crack (If you’ve never had Christmas Crack, here is a link to a recipe. Although the recipe my mom uses is not this one, it’s pretty similar.)
By then Joseph was back and Julianna had to go home, 🙁 and we played the next game. This was Kate’s game. Funny thing. Our family calls it cellophane, but hardly anybody else knew what that was!? Cellophane is plastic wrap, or Saran wrap, like that plastic thin stuff you use to cover leftovers? We call it cellophane, which I didn’t know was weird, but ok?
That was a fun game, she was really creative, making each person who received the turn would remove one layer of plastic wrap and read the task. They would need to do the mini task (e.i. spell Christmas backward) and then pass the gift to the person who met the goal (e.i. longest hair). It went around all over the place and ended with Aiden. Here is a link to something like that if you are interested. Ours wasn’t as big or red, but it was still fun. 😀
Then it was Christmas White Elephant Gift exchange!
Since it was later in the day, Georgia and Nick had to go home, and they took their exchange gifts. Joseph said one of them had taken his, and once they left, he told us that it was a giant two pound candy cane, which I thought was super fun (even though I can’t eat candy canes)! We never did figure out what the other ones that Julianna and Nick took were.
Our youth leaders had hosted a Youth Group Christmas Party the week before, and we used their method in distributing the gifts. (This makes it a lot easier, it avoids that awkward “Who do I get one for and who should I not, and I don’t have the money!” deal)
We had 18 people participating, so each person got a slip of paper with a number on it (I was number 6). Then from 1 – 18 the people take turns opening gifts. Once the first gift is picked and opened, the next person can either chose to steal the gift, or open one that has not yet been opened.
I got a Coffee Gift card, but since I don’t drink coffee (Oh blame me, I don’t drink coffee, so?) I gave the gift away.
Over all it was so much fun! After the gift exchange we did a little game from the Minute to Win it show. The person playing gets 4 thin, equal sized markers, and balances them on the outside of their hand (that is to say, not the palm side). The timer starts (one minutes) and the player must quickly and carefully toss the markers up (with only their one hand) and catch them all with the same hand. The player that is able to work their way up to the most markers at one time in one minute is the winner. Sam got 5, Dave got 7, I got 4, Joseph got 13 and Ethan beat him by two, getting 15. It was crazy watching Joseph and Ethan do it. Toss, catch, take another marker, repeat. Over and over, it was crazy! I thought it was a lot of fun!
By then it was 5:00, and we decided to eat dinner before heading out to the Roller Skate Alley. It was a slippery icy night and we had a couple of people who were going to meet us at the skate alley. We needed to be there by 6. So we ate dinner (a couple of us did) and then tried to tidy some of the mess. I had to make sure Ethan and Tanya took all the Bibles they brought (soo many Bibles!) (They still ended up leaving one on accident. *cough* the one I pushed under the couch *cough* I gave it back this Sunday)
Then we went to the skate alley! Steve and mom took Lily, Kate and I, as well as Lisa and Joseph. And Ethan and Tanya were able to give a couple of people a ride as well.
Although I had planned the Christmas Party on a Wednesday on purpose, because the Skate Alley is owned by a Church and Wednesday’s are supposed to be Christian skate, this week they didn’t! I was bummed, but I think because so many other people thought the same thing, a lot of the special requests were Christian songs that I knew were clean, so it wasn’t too bad.
We skated for about an hour and a half, although I kept having to take breaks. My throat and chest burned so bad, and my head was heavy. It was too bad because I wanted to get a couple of hours for my P.E. credit, but it didn’t work out too well.
Some of the kids were so weird! On the table next to us was a pizza that was only missing a couple of slices. I guess they got so hungry that they took some of the slices! One of the girls who met us there even had it reheated! I don’t know why, we had just eaten, but I mean if they wanted to eat someone else’s pizza, I let them. That table had been empty for the two hours we had been there, so we figured it was ok to take. They ate it all….
Anyway, after the skate we went to Costco and got all the food that they had left. Half a pizza, three sandwiches, three chicken bakes, and a bunch of Chiros.
Then we went to my house, ate again (youth eats a lot).
Then we watched “The Resurrections of Gaven Stone.” I’ve seen it before and really liked it, so I got it for Christmas, and we watched it that day. If some of y’all folks haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
The last of our friends left about 11:30. So it was almost a 12 hour party! It was sooo much fun, even though I had a cold, and we had so many people, and so much games and eating and fun.
So that was that! I hope you all enjoyed reading about it and I hope it wasn’t too long or too boring.
I hope you all had an AMAZING Christmas and New Year. Next week I’ll post my new year resolutions. One of them is getting more followers, so share with your friends!
And to you amazing reader and follower. Thanks so much for joining my blog and reading my random blabber.
I can’t believe you’re still reading this! Thanks so much!
Happy New Year!
~B.R.B. and Libby
Your Christmas sounds like it was so much fun! 😀
It was a blast!