Ward Christmas Party

The best way to be initiated into a new ward is to plan its Christmas party. It's worked two years in a row for us! This year it was on quite short notice and for a quite gigantic ward. BUT it all came together in the end. We had some wonderful help from unknowing volunteers who graciously agreed to a lot more than they bargained for (but, then again, so did we!). We will be forever indebted to Sammie and Austin Lee (Austin not only shares a name with my cousin, Austin Lea, but looks eerily identical).

In the end we successfully served a traditional ham dinner to a crowd of about 300 in a fully "decked hall" with boughs of garlands and white lights (all that work and I forgot to get a picture!). We also invited everyone to wear their ugliest or most festive sweater, hence our outfits below :) Had their been a prize given for the best sweater, it'd had gone to Seth. I made that masterpiece in about 10 minutes the day of the party. Rudolph was complete with blinking nose and all. Seth later revealed that he only agreed to wear it because he was MCing and could "get away" with a more outrageous outfit.

Merry Christmas!