We sure do a lot of celebrating in December with our family's birthdays and Christmas. One of our traditions is the missionary Christmas party. We celebrated a bit earlier than usual this year.
This year we had several families less since one family is on furlough, one family is back in the US awaiting the birth of their second child, one family in the US for other reasons, and one single lady was also home on furlough. We are only all together with these families at Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, otherwise most everyone is involved in separate ministries. Still, with several families missing we had seven adults and sixteen children.
We planned the menu to be easy and simple with sub sandwiches, chips, a veggie tray, and desserts.
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| Refreshment table. |
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| Food table (with our daughter caught eating again!) |
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| Dessert table. |
As always these missionary parties are a chance to relax and enjoy Christian fellowship.
While the children were busy watching Christmas videos and cartoons,
the adults enjoyed a game of Headbanz. My kids received this game from a friend of mine who sends us packages after I recently asked her to send us a new game for them to play at home. The kids love it and it was a big hit at our Christmas party.
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| James and Cassie Dean |
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| Bonnie Hearron |
As a last event for the day, the children and adults enjoyed opening gifts. We exchange names each year. For the last several years we have exchanged family names for the children. This means we give a board game as a gift to all of the children in the family whose name we drew instead of individual gifts for each child. They seem to enjoy this and it saves the parents a bit of money since there are lots of children around here!
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| Monopoly! |
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| A Russian dictionary game! |
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| A Hello Kitty game! |
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| Our kids received Twister! |
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| New gloves! |
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| My hubby received a new heater (we use these everywhere!) |
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| New bowls! |
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| I received a flour sifter and glass tea cups! |
Everyone enjoyed the day!
Our children were excited to be able to take their Twister game home and soon play it in the new house!
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| 12/25/11 |
It is so nice that you all are able to get together. Even though it makes things busy, the encouragement and fellowship is such a blessing.
ReplyDeleteNew games are a great gift! As our kids get older, we can play more and more games. Dutch Blitz is one of our favorites! Twister has been on Sarah's "wish list" for awhile. We'll have to keep an eye out for that one and also Headbands while we are in the states.
Thanks for sharing your memories.
You're welcome for sharing! :) It is a blessing to be able to get together for the holidays. Gives everyone something to look forward to. Twister is fun! Headbanz is also a great one to play with the kids!
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