Ward Christmas Party (in absentia)

Today while I was attending session after session of conference presentations, I started getting pictures of the ward Christmas party. Miriam passed her driving test this morning (hurrah!) so she drove to the church early and started hanging garlands. Andrew and the other kids joined her later to put up some finishing touches...and then the party started. 

And I think it was worth all the headaches and tears putting it together. People seemed to have fun and it was pretty well attended—around 100 people by our estimate. People seemed to understand the roving rooms set up and many seemed to appreciate having various activities to do. 

I...admittedly...wasn't there (off doing actual job stuff), so I have to rely on what I was told and saw. But what I saw was pretty good. 

Here's the nursery room before Miriam got the popcorn strands up:

Alexander is building a little castle out of those cardboard blocks. The nursery room was "on the farm" in Nauvoo. They had beanbag toss, corn hole, blocks to build with, stick pulling, and butter shaking. Here are a few pictures of those activities with the popcorn strands up:

The butter shaking was a huge hit with the young men and (as Alexander put it), "Sister Purple-Hair."

The primary room was the "Scovil Bakery," where the primary had supplied cookies for the kids (and/or adults) to decorate:

The primary kids helped to decorate the cardboard gingerbread cookie garlands over two weeks of singing time. Now I need to go through and find all the ones with their names on the back because a few of them are not-so-patiently waiting for their artwork back.

Phoebe had a fun time decorating cookies:

She went a little heavy on the sprinkles!

This is the post office/print shop and I believe it went well. I didn't see many pictures from this room during the party, but I heard there were people inside writing letters. Miriam's friend Andie made the mailbox for people to put their letters in. They were encouraged to write letters to people in the ward and the Young Women will deliver them later. 

Miriam had cosy fireplace scenes going in some of the rooms—and see the lovely orange slices she dried to use as garland. The Relief Society room was supposed to be the Hiram and Sarah Granger Kimball Home, where the Relief Society first met. The Young Men were set up in there and had a craft—of a nativity—for kids/people to do.

At the main entrance, Miriam set up some barn doors as a photo op backdrop:

Here's a lovely little Christmas picture...without me (or Rachel) in it:

Maybe I'll make us put the backdrop back up at home so we can take a Christmas picture all together! Miriam also had pioneer dress ups available for people to wear for pictures (I don't know if anyone did), as well as a "Red Brick Store" area where ward members dropped off food bank donations:

At the last minute, Miriam decided to add in a little "museum" exhibit as the "Calvin and Sally Pendleton Home and Schoolhouse." She went around the house and collected...Nauvoo...stuff...and wrote little information cards about things. Here's an old hymn book (from 1903 or something) and a bust of Joseph Smith we bought in Nazareth:

Here's a sampler featuring the Deseret Alphabet (made by Andrew) and a copy of one of the Egyptian "facsimiles" from the Pearl of Great Price that we purchased on Road 9 in Maadi:

Here she described some Nauvoo bricks and the sunstone and the pioneer trail:

This is a tree she decorated with ornaments from Nauvoo (as well as some olive wood decorations we got in Israel). Here she also displayed some copies of The Doctrine and Covenants and talked about its history:

And here she put up various translations of The Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith Translation:

I heard the dinner got started a little late because people were hesitant to leave the activities, but it was well attended. 



Here's the butter they "churned" in the nursery, which they then got to use on the buns/rolls with the dinner:

Towards the end of dinner, Miriam busted out the piano...into the hallway...because it's not allowed on the gym floors (which they recently replaced...with laminate...instead of hardwood).

She had someone read about carolers coming to Joseph Smith's home in the wee hours of the morning on Christmas, and then everyone sang Christmas carols. I'm not sure what songs they sang, but I hope it was wonderful!

I was a little bit sad to not be able to be there (and maybe embarrassingly rushed up to my hotel room to cry, only to be surprised that my roommate was inside working on her presentation for tomorrow morning when I thought she would already be out enjoying an "evening of debauchery" (her words—she's never been to Vegas and was excited to hit the casino floor), but instead she hung out and ate a burger with me and talked about how hard it is to be a motherscholar and how sometimes those roles work together so well and how sometimes they just don't work together well at all...and then she hit the casino floor for an evening of debauchery while I finished eating my burger while talking to Andrew and Miriam). But I was glad that the party came together and that people seemed to have a good time.