My Family Christmas Party

Our extended family party was hosted by Shauna this year, so she chose to hold the party at her church. She did a great job with planning the food and activities. :) For dinner we had a delicious potato bar with chili. I didn't get any pictures of the food because I forgot to take out my camera. After dinner we started into our first activity. Shauna had us all decorate little ornaments for our Christmas trees. On the ornament somewhere we were to write what our gift to Christ is this year. Here is everyone getting ready to begin.
Alexandra mostly just wandered around the whole time being social.

I needed to get proof that Jeremy and Robert actually worked on a crafty project, so here they are!

I sat at the little kid table and made my ornaments while assisting some of the others.

Ashley and Paige seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Nathan has learned to make silly faces for the camera instead of normal faces. Fun phase. He too was decorating ornaments.

In her wanderings, Alexandra found a little pile of shoes and decided to try them out. She is wearing Katelyn's boots!

When we all finished our ornaments, a few people took turns sharing their talents. I like to see what the nieces and nephews come up with because they are all so individual. This picture is of Samantha, Hazel, Athena, and Amanda singing Silent Night.

Then OF COURSE my sisters and I had to sing. We always do because we enjoy singing together. I thought this picture is funny because Denise and Robert look like they don't quite know what to do with themselves. Is Denise mad at Robert? Or just bored out of her mind? And just what is Robert pondering?

After the talent show wrapped up (which also included Nicholas and Hailey singing and Ashley doing a little dance), we started into the good part - PRESENTS! This year we all brought a little gift for the kids to unwrap. We put all the gifts in the middle of the circle and the kids picked a number. It was in that order that they chose a gift to unwrap and keep.

Athena received a small collection of little dolls and doll furniture.

Samantha received this little teddy bear.

Nathan received a big sticky hand that you throw and it sticks to things. We didn't include Alexandra into the mix this year because she could care less. She did her own thing the whole time anyway!

I also didn't get any pictures of the adult gag gift exchange, but that's always a highlight of our family party. I ended up with this stupid Celestial Heir board game that I plan on secretly giving one of my sisters at a later date. :) Jeremy was actually quite happy with his gift. He got a football shaped crockpot! He is most anxious to use it to make little smokies for his annual superbowl party.

After the gag gifts, we all ate dessert and helped clean up after the party. It turned out to be really fun - thank you Shauna for putting it all together!

Once we left the party we had one more stop to make for the evening - Jeremy's parents. We missed Jeremy's family party this year, so the kids never got a chance to open their gift from Grandma Lynda. We stopped in and they got to open their matching jammies! Grandma gave all the cousins matching PJs and they look so cute in them. :) We put the jammies on the kids and took this picture in front of Grandma's tree.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Kristy also had matching PJs. Here is Grandpa in his PJs and check out what he is showing off! Jenny gave him this for Christmas so he proudly displayed it in the front window! Funny. :) (In case you can't tell, it's a leg lamp, like on The Christmas Story.)

That wraps up our night! Another busy, but fun evening with family.