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.

Christmas Town at Busch Gardens and Mount Vernon

Kent and I had a quiet Thanksgiving with just the two of us. I think it may be the first Thanksgiving we've spent alone in the thirty-five years we've been married! We both spent the day working on projects--Kent putting up the Christmas lights in the yard and me working on the decorations for the ward Christmas party, which was the next week.

On the Friday night after Thanksgiving we worked at the temple, but on the Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens near Williamsburg.

 We went a couple of years ago, but this time it was definitely much more crowded. Here's how the decorations looked in the daytime when we arrived.

 The magic happened after it got dark; here's the same view at night.

One thing we missed when we went two years ago was the nativity story play that had been highly recommended to us. We went to it first thing so we wouldn't miss it on this visit.

 The play had its moments, but the music was way too jazzed up for my taste. Kind of a Hollywood version of the nativity play, I'd say. It wasn't my favorite.

 One thing they had that I didn't notice before was a cage with live eagles in it. That's probably the closest I've ever been to a bald eagle.

 This was one of our favorite trees. It looked like the tree of life.

 The park boasts over 8 million lights and claims to be the largest Christmas lights display in America.

 There were lots of pretty views, but we didn't get many good pictures.

 Just two days after we went to Christmas Town, my Bible Study group went to Mount Vernon.

 We watched the introductory movie and toured the house; photos aren't allowed inside the house.

 During the Christmas season Mount Vernon has a camel on display, since when George Washington was alive he would bring a camel to Mount Vernon..

 Afterwards we ate lunch at the Mount Vernon restaurant. The food isn't very good and it's expensive, but the ambiance is nice!

These were two nice activities to kick off the Christmas season this year!

Visiting the Colorado Carsons after Tyler's Return from Afghanistan

Tyler returned from his nine-month deployment to Afghanistan on September 12th. Of course we were anxious to see him and his sweet family, so Kent and I both flew out on the Thursday before Veteran's day, which was on a Friday this year. I'd been to visit Rachel and the kids in February, but Kent hadn't seen them all year.

It's always fun for the kids to rough house with Daddy and Granddad.

Cuddled up to watch a movie. I thought Sylvia and Kent looking at each other was super cute in this picture.

Reading to the grandchildren.

On Friday we drove up to the new Fort Collins LDS Temple, which was about a two-hour drive.

It was a lovely autumn day.

We took some pictures before Tyler and Rachel went in to do some sealings.

Kent and I watched Andrew and Sylvia while their Mom and Dad went into the temple.

We took the kids to McDonald's so they could play at the indoor playground. I took this photo of them in the tunnel together.

That evening we picked up some supplies at Lowe's to start a kitchen remodel.

Kent, Tyler and Rachel worked on painting the kitchen cupboards while I watched the kids.

Tyler, Rachel and Kent worked all day on Saturday.

We don't have a good "Before" photo, but the cabinets were the commonly used oak color from the 1990's.

The cabinet painting job went pretty quickly with three people working on it, so they decided to put up a stick-on backsplash under the cabinets.

Here's the completed remodel. The wood around the light on the ceiling was also painted white. It had been the same oak wooden color as the cabinets. We all thought the finished product was fantastic!

 

It's obvious that Tyler is thrilled to be home with his family again.

We took a picture before church on Sunday.

Posing with Sylvia in the fancy new kitchen.

A picture outside the building at church with Sylvia and Andrew.

On Sunday evening we had Chris and Shyrlene Brooks over to dinner. Rachel made a wonderful meal.

A cute picture of Andrew reading a book in his closet with his BYU blanket and BYU pillow.

One other thing we did was to get an updated picture of Sylvia and Andrew for our Carson grandchildren picture.

 This picture was so sweet of Andrew being a good big brother to Sylvia.

I went home on Monday morning but Kent stayed until Wednesday to help Tyler with home improvement projects and spend more time with Tyler and Rachel's family.