Putting on the Ward Christmas Party

In September I found out that the Relief Society had been assigned to put on the ward Christmas party. The Relief Society president translated that as meaning her counselor over RS activities and me, as the RS activity leader, were in charge of putting on the party. The counselor and I called a meeting of our committee back in October, but they didn't really contribute any ideas and didn't volunteer to do anything. For all intents and purposes, Kay Dudenhefer and her husband, and Kent and I put on the ward Christmas party, with minimal help from others.

I did ask a sister (not on my RS committee) to make the invitations, and she did them all by herself without any help from me. She did a great job and I was very appreciative. We divided up the activity so that Kay took charge of the food and I took charge of set up, decorations, the photo booth, and the program that the Primary children took part in. We thought the Primary presidency would take charge of the nativity program and singing of Christmas carols, but they weren't really willing to do it, so I took charge of that, too.

I had lots of burlap, rustic, natural-looking wall decorations from the recital decorations I had in December of 2014. But I didn't need centerpieces for the recital, and I didn't have to decorate the entire cultural hall, only 2/3rds of it. So I still had lots of projects to work on, trying to keep the budget low. When I was in Lowe's with Tyler and Rachel in Colorado, I saw this reindeer decoration.

I was inspired to use some chunks of wood Kent had cut for me to make these reindeer in a much smaller version.

I needed about 28 centerpieces for all the tables we would be setting up. Here's how they turned out:

 Kent drilled the holes in the larger chunks to fit the battery operated candles inside. I already had the birds, which I'd bought to use as ornaments. The lighting makes the charger plate I used look gold, but it was really silver. I had eight silver chargers and eight red ones that I used for the centerpieces.

 I made a dozen small reindeer and ten larger reindeer to use as the centerpieces. I'd gathered pine cones when we went to Chincoteague and when I was in Colorado. Kent cut the chunks of wood for the reindeer, but I drilled the holes for the antlers and the legs and made the reindeer by myself while Kent was at work. I used beads for the nose and the eyes.

The large reindeer and pine cone trees were the centerpieces for the long tables, 

  and I had six of these lanterns that were also on the long narrow tables. Note the very cute napkins I found that had reindeer and said  "Joy to the World" on them.

 Kent spray painted and put together eleven of these stars, made with paint stir sticks from Lowe's and Home Depot.

 On the walls there were eleven stars and nine "trees".

 I cut out all the letters and backgrounds for the Christmas carol titles, and gave them to two members of my committee to glue them all together. There were six banners with Christmas carol titles.

  From the 2014 Christmas recital I had some burlap ribbons that said "Joy to the World" on them. I used them across the top of the walls where I didn't have Christmas carol banners.

 One of the jobs Kent did on Thanksgiving was cutting down a small tree on our property. After he cut it down I went out and looked over the branches and had him save enough to make nine of these two-dimensional "trees" on the wall. On the day we set up for the party he measured the cross branches and nailed them into the wall. I had a small strand of lights on brown wire that we put on the trees to light them up. Then we decorated them with all the ornaments I already had, some I made, plus some from the dollar store. All the red decorations were new, since I hadn't used them for my recital two years ago.

The plastic cups and bowls Kay bought were red, so I added that to my color scheme of burlap, woodsy, and silver.

I made four of these burlap wreaths and put them up on four of the doors into the Cultural Hall.

 This was the table I set up for the desserts to be placed on.

I bought this Noel music fabric to use as a tablecloth for my piano recitals.

Kent and I created the backdrop for the Primary nativity play. When I was RS president my secretary painted this Bethlehem backdrop. I kept it and it came in handy for the play!

 I also played the piano for the Christmas carols we sang during the nativity program.

A sister in the ward paints signs and pictures for stores and businesses, so she made the backdrop for the photo booth and did an excellent job. Our camera was used to take dozens of photos in front of this backdrop. Then I uploaded the pictures to the RS facebook page. 

It took HOURS and HOURS ofshopping to gather all the decorations, then creating the decor and figuring everything out, but I was pleased with the result. I think it turned out as well as I hoped it would, but I have to say that I couldn't have done it without all the help from Kent. I have the great ideas, but he's the one who makes them happen!! And the good news was that the activity was on December 2nd, so it was over early in the month so we could focus on our own Christmas projects afterwards.