Christmas At Home 2011

This year definitely gets the vote for "most unusual" Christmas in our family! For one, we did not want to put up all of the Christmas decorations including the tree in the small house. We had to move furniture out of the that house in order to put up the tree and we all agreed there was no point in doing all that just before moving. The last few weeks before Christmas we had been working diligently on the new house so we could move in before the 25th. Well, we made it, barely! At approximately 2 am on the 25th I was decorating the tree in the NEW HOUSE! After that, I was up another hour wrapping all the presents!

Even though we got to bed late...well, early Christmas morning, we wouldn't have slept well anyway since we were in the new house for the first night. It felt so strange to be in a new place that we didn't sleep much!

So, while we slept in a bit the kids got up around 8 am to see the tree decorated with presents underneath. They also opened their stockings. 

Christmas 2011

Below is an overview of the gift opening! Sorry that some of the photos are blurry. I didn't post several of them because of this. My camera doesn't do well if it is shaken or if there is movement and with all the excitement of Christmas morning it was difficult to catch the kids sitting still!

The kids got me a statue to hang necklaces on.

Rebekah received a movie from her brothers.

Headphones for Ryan's Didj from his sister.

A movie for Timothy from his sister.

Ninjago sets from Grandma and Grandpa.

3D picture and puzzle from Great Grandma.

A Nerf sword and shield to match with his brother.

Beads and more beads to make jewelry!

Transformers!

Rebekah and her new bath robe.

We didn't do a huge Christmas this year for a special reason which I will explain in the next post. 

It's a surprise!

2011 Missionary Christmas Party

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.

Refreshment table.

Food table (with our daughter caught eating again!)

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.

James and Cassie Dean

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!

Monopoly!

A Russian dictionary game!

A Hello Kitty game!

Our kids received Twister!

New gloves!

My hubby received a new heater (we use these everywhere!)

New bowls!

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!

12/25/11