Another Christmas FHE

In the 5 days after returning from Disney World we scrambled to get kids caught up in school, decorate 2 Christmas trees,

get the rest of the Christmas decorations up, and prepare for our annual Garrick Family Christmas FHE*/Party. (*Family Home Evening). This year we had the Lewis', the Christensen's, the Manzanares', the Chambers', and the Burnard's. This was a grand total of 12 adults and 21 kids!! As usual I was so much in running the show mode, I didn't take a lot of pictures, and the ones I took weren't great. I had a nice time though- and hope our friends did too despite my extreme lack of hostessing skills.

Dinner consisted of soups and chilis. (Molly's white chili was the biggest hit, but it was all so good!) We also had rolls, salad, veggie tray, and desserts. Everyone was SO nice to bring food to share.

Because of our numbers we had the kids eat at the big table in the basement. Reagan, Sydney and Mya opted for the teeny table in the basement.

After dinner we had Family Home Evening. Jackson (and Jillie) led our opening song.

I taught a lesson reviewing the Christmas story, the importance of Christ's birth, and watched the 5 minute church film, The Nativity.
Following the spiritual portion of our FHE, the white elephant gift exchange.

The anticipation of what surprise lies under the wrapping...

the bargaining and persuading and stealing and begging...

and the wonderful gift that Greg thought would be so funny.... that Kobe ended up "winning"... that I got to look at sitting on my counter for days until they started dying...

Lovely crickets. :(

The gift exchange went on for an hour, due to the number of people. I hope the grown ups didn't mind that it was a late night. The kids didn't seem to care... and I sure didn't. I love having so many wonderful friends here!

FYI: Jillie did a post this weekend on her blog- feel free to take a look.