Huge Family Christmas Party

I've been AWOL for a couple of days, but my sweetie and the Dog Walker were nice enough to take care of me. I wanted to tell you about our big family Christmas party we had on Sunday. Every year we have my brothers and sisters and their families over for dinner and Santa and a fun activity.

This year my sweetie prepared BBQ ribs and homemade rolls. I did the acquiring of food, not the actual cooking. Everyone brought a salad and we served dinner to more than 50 of us. After that Grandpa gave a speech and then we settled into our craft project.

I thought long and hard on this project. I wanted to make a family tree that would help all of us to remember names and get to know the cousins as they grow and change. The same cute girl who prepared our boards for the girl scout party put together the trees for me. They are about 3 ft tall with a gold star on top.

For the last couple of weeks I have been collecting pictures of all of the families. Then I bought plastic keychain frames and little gold hooks and we hung everyone on the family tree. Actually it was multiple family trees because we had one made for each household (if you were counting, that was 15 trees). They have the pictures on the front and the names of each person on the back.

They turned out even better than I had hoped and everyone was super excited about keeping them updated every year. After that, Santa came by to visit and he brought gifts to all the kids under 18. They loved the 3D holiday glasses that turn lights into reindeer, snowflakes and a whole range of Christmas pictures.

After eggnog shakes and exchanging of gifts, the families drifted off to their homes. I always love having everyone together, especially on holidays. There's just something about hanging out with the people we love...