Christmas Parties

This weekend, we celebrated Christmas by having a couple of family Christmas parties. First, on Friday December 17, we had the first annual Terry Morwood family Christmas party. (Well at least I think it will become a tradition.) We had a good time at Tami's house playing games, sharing white elephant gifts, and eating dinner and treats.

We played games first. We had a cake (or candy cane) walk and then we played a game from "Minute to Win It." In this game we had to move an Oreo from our foreheads to our mouths using only our facial muscles.

As you can see, the game was a little harder than we thought but fun all the same! Afterward, our faces were covered in cookie crumbs and our Oreos were broken to pieces from falling off our heads onto the floor.

After the games, we ate dinner of yummy soup bowls. Then we decorated Christmas cookies and played our White Elephant game, the main event!

We passed the gifts right, left, left, then right until finally the crazy story was over. After the story, we traded or opened the gifts we ended up with. There were some pretty funny gifts and some really funny reactions to the gifts we opened. My favorite was Justin and the six pack of Welch's grape juice he got. He was trying to pawn that gift off on anyone and everyone he could. Finally toward the end he realized he couldn't get rid of it so he opened the pack and started drinking the juice. We all laughed at him. Russell, Emily and I ended up getting some good things: a Chutes & Ladders game, Christmas receiving blanket, and a animal shaped punch balloon.

After we were done, my mom handed out a present to each of the grand kids to open. She had been working really hard on pajamas for all of the grand kids and I think they turned out really cute! Emily loves her "dancin' 'jamas" and so did the other little cousins. Thanks Mom!!

Saturday, December 18 was the annual Morwood Christmas party with all of my dad's brothers and sisters. This year my family put on the Nativity story. Each of us did a little talk on each of the characters in the Naivety story and what meaning or significance they have in the story and our lives today. We took most of our information for our talks from the book by Emily Freeman entitled "A Christ Centered Christmas." This is a really good book and I would encourage everyone to read it.

After the Nativity, Santa Claus came and gave each of the kids a gift. Emily started bawling the moment he walked in the room. Then when he called her name, she got a really worried look on her face. I had to carry her up to him and then she refused to set on his lap she just clung to my clothes and wouldn't let go. She did want her present though so she let go long enough to grab the present and say "Thank you" through her tears.

She loved her present, as you can see. She got an "I Spy" bag and book and a new pair of Dora pajamas. (I don't know why Russell looks stoned in this picture, maybe someone spiked the water?!). Emily is really good at finding things in the I Spy book. She can find almost everything in the book. I just have to point to or say what I want her to find and she can find it in the pictures.

Emily loved being with her cousins and playing with the presents they got from Santa too. Her favorite was the drum Tyler got. She liked carrying it around and banging on it. Maybe she will be a percussionist someday. Tyler was especially cute toddling around with his little drum. I wish I would have gotten a picture but every time I would see him he was either too far to get a good picture or he would turn his back to me so I couldn't see his face or drum. It was way too cute!