Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Yesterday was our last day of Christmas Chaos. Can you believe it? It's only December 4th and we're done. We have absolutely nothing left on our calendar for the entire rest of December except Christmas. Our Christmas card is in the making. Our Christmas shopping is in the bag. It is the absolutely most bestest feeling in the whole entire world. I just signed up for Blockbuster online and my entire queue is made up of Christmas movies and romance movies and all I'm gonna do is sit on the couch with my kids and hubby cuddled in close and watch movies. And bake--a little. It's not really Christmas without gaining a few pounds from Christmas goodies. That said, here are a few pics from the four Christmas parties we attended this past weekend and a little (or maybe big) overview.
Friday (sorry no pics) Mark and I attended his work party. I hate going because I feel so out of place but it's just part of our holidays now so I almost always go and almost always end up having fun. The Rodgersons were kind enough to offer to babysit and they arrived extra early so Mark and I could do our Christmas shopping too. They brought pizza and I rented Home Alone and the kids were all set. Mark and I hit Toys R Us and Walmart and then headed for Pier 61 in New York City for food and dancing and socializing--okay Mark socialized and I stood there looking cold and cute--but you know what I mean. On our way home, around midnight, we received a phone call from June that Hunter was having a seizure. That's the first time he's had a seizure when we haven't been there, poor June. Noah came to Hunter's rescue again and helped June find and administer the sugar. It was a late night to say the least and we're ever so grateful to the Rodgersons for watching the kids so that we could escape and do our Christmas shopping together.
 Saturday we had two parties and were busy from sun up til sun down. GE throws a children's Christmas party every year at the Bridgeport Arena. There's always an ice skating show and Santa and presents and food. It's kind of crowded and always cold but we never let a Christmas go by without attending. The kids got their presents and we hurried in to see the show. This year Cyberchase's Harry was the MC which was sort of exciting because Hunter is totally into Cyberchase, or at least he used to be. We also got to see the acrobat, who used to play Barkley on Sesame Street, perform some pretty fun acts. After the show we had to run, literally, to our car so we could get home, load up the car and head over to the church.
Mark and I are the Activities Committee and this year we decided to have a "Night in Bethlehem" for the Ward Christmas Party. We had an awesome group of people helping us and it turned out really nice. Unfortunately we were forced to change the date from the 14th to the 1st and a local football championship interfered with our attendance but it went well nevertheless. We started setting up at noon and by four we were most of the way ready to go. We did a quick dress rehearsal and threw on our costumes and the night began. You can see more pictures at Sam's website (she's a real photographer) but here are a few of mine.
This was the Gift Shop, the Winery and the Toy Shop. Here people could buy wine (grape juice), gold, frankincense, myrrh, dreidels, and candy. We made all of our tents with pvc pipe frames in food storage buckets packed with rocks. Then we stapled sheets to the burlap gym wall and secured them to the pvc pipes with duct tape.
This was the Fruit Stand, Dairy, Bakery and Bread shop. Here people could buy clementines, bananas and apples, dates, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, olives (including authentic Greek olives--thanks Steve), cookies, Indian naan, rolls with honey, hummus, and bagels with cream cheese.
One of the authentic items we offered were pickled eggs, made by none other than Mark who made our house wreak of beets and vinegar for three days straight. I didn't get to taste one (because as usual, I was running around making things go) but I hear they were quite tasty. The color was pretty remarkable.
To add to the atmosphere we had a snake charmer, a matchmaker, and a roman guard. And of course everyone had to come dressed in Biblical attire. There were some very fancy costumes there and then there were my boys--can you say towels, sheets and some random ropes and strips of fabric?
  
Even though we had a small turnout, it still looked pretty crowded in Bethlehem that night. Everyone brought blankets to sit on and after paying their taxes (each family receieved a bag of coins and were required to pay one coin to the tax collector) and signing the census they were allowed to enter Bethlehem and buy their dinner. Then Mary and Joseph wandered through the crowds and a brief Nativity and Christmas sing-a-long followed.
This is the entire cast from the Nativity. Once again I heisted it off of Sam's website--thanks Sam.) We had the most perfect Mary and Joseph (thanks Torgersons). The entire Christmas Party committee worked really hard to put on this night for a less than ideal turnout(thanks friends) but I think it turned out really well and the people that did come had a wonderful evening. I've included the script here just in case someone's looking for a great Ward Christmas Party idea. We spent a whopping three weeks putting it together and had the entire gym, including stringing the lights, done in three hours. Not bad, eh?
Sunday was crazy probably because it snowed and also because we were totally exhausted from Saturday but we survived and had a nice afternoon watching TV and napping. Then Monday we had Hunter's Pediatric Diabete's Christmas Party. Kate the Elf was there, who is one of a very few people that makes me smile every time I think about her, and Santa with presents for each of our kids, and pizza and ice cream. We didn't get so many pictures because this is a very fast-paced party but I did snap these two, just because these are two landmarks we always have to visit when we attend the party at the Yale Pediatric Diabetes Christmas Party.
 
And that, my friends, is a wrap. . . for our entire Holiday Season. Whew!
posted by Shana # 2:42 PM 
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