If You're Scared, Look Towards the Light

I took a day off of work yesterday; well, my paying job that is. I still worked.

I got up and dropped my oldest at summer school. Then I went BACK.TO.BED. until 9:30. It was heaven.

Next, I ran errands, like Costco, the grocery store, etc. I also trimmed my out-of-control rose bush so it would stop assaulting me every time I walked past. Got groceries put away, cleaned my house from top to bottom and even managed to get 4 loads of laundry done AND listened to an online lecture for school.

I tried a new Taco Salad Recipe (Thanks Linda & Jen!) and got my grill on for dinner. The sister who lives close by came over with her hubby & kids. And, my aunt from Tennessee (the one that sent me treats @ Christmas) and her daughter and her grandson came to visit too! They made the road trip because my Aunt and cousin are dropping my cousin's son off to college and he is starting Summer Term. We ate. We laughed. We got the fire pit going and the kids made s'mores and "roasted" Starbursts.

Even after the out-of-towners headed back to the hotel to sleep, my sister & BIL & I hung out until MIDNIGHT and chatted and laughed and wheezed and almost peed our pants. Guess we lost track of time... oops.

The little ones wanted a sleepover. We obliged. It took them about 30 minutes or so to wind down. I kept hearing whispers and giggles. And the littlest one must have gotten scared at some points, cuz then I'd hear PrettyPrettyPrincess say, "If you get scared, just look towards the light." She was referring to the light from the bathroom, bleeding into the hallway and shining in her room. Nevertheless, it made me smile.

Here's a pic of the cousin sleepover in progress.

After-Party clean up was a breeze, thanks to paper products. I know I need to go to work tomorrow (which is now today). But it's productive and fun days like this that makes me wish I didn't have to :)

Christmas Party for 200 Please

Church Christmas Party


So, I got asked to be over the activities at church the end of October. They told me my remaining budget was about $600 oh and by the way, nothing had been planned for Christmas yet. (Yikes!)

I was worried about serving 200 people Christmas Dinner. Plus we would want to decorate, etc. Which means the food would have to be less than $3 per person. Can anyone say Panic? First order of business: get an awesome committee! Check.

Next we had to come up with a theme and food. To me it made sense to go simple and cheap. However, I did not think that hotdogs would fly. "What is cheap and feeds a lot of people?" I asked myself. Immediately I thought of Amish Haystacks. I knew from growing up around my Amish grandparents, cousins, etc., that their typical fundraising dinner - an Amish Haystack dinner - would feed tons and was cheap. Click here for recipe

This lady at church makes these dinner rolls from scratch that are to-die for. She is also used to cooking/catering for large parties. I asked her about making rolls for the Ward Christmas Party and how much she'd charge. She told me she would make 400 rolls if I gave her 25 lbs of flour, 4 lbs of butter and 1 dozen eggs. I couldn't believe it. Things were coming together and I knew that we could get $6 pumpkin pies from Costco that would feed 12-16 people per pie.
That settled it! Once we figured out the food and theme - everything else sort of formed itself.

Theme: Christmas in the Country
Food: Amish Haystack Dinner, homemade rolls, pie for dessert
Entertainment: Country Bumpkin Band & Little Lamb's Choir
Activities: Handmade Ornaments for the kids, Group Sing-A-Long
Decor: Rustic, simple, traditional

The Country Bumpkin Band is actually a family from the neighborhood. Almost all of them play the piano and they agreed to play (for free) Christmas music during dinner.

Table cloths - We called up our local newspaper and asked if they could sell us a roll of plain paper. We got it for $5 and it covered 20 long tables! How cool is that? Clean up's a breeze! And we had enough utensils, napkins and cups from last year. So that meant we just needed to get good sturdy paper plates.

I left the decorating up to a few of the committee members as they are so much better at it than I. And, being in the "Country" meant it could be kept simple. Garlands for the table (the ones we used last year) and punched white paper sacks with 40 battery-operated votives (which a committee member already owned). We also found little country looking wooden boxes stashed away in our supply closet - obviously from a few years ago. We filled those with crayons and set those out on the tables for the kids to color on the paper while waiting for food. (like they do at restaurants)

We had some craft tables set up in back. I figured the kids would be done eating way before the adults, and making their own ornament would keep them busy. Some of the young women agreed to help oversee that.

The Primary Kids agreed to be our "Little Lambs Choir". Holli from our committee made Little Lamb headbands for all of them too. They sang 2 little numbers and the bishop handed them each a candy cane as they got off the stage.

After the Little Lambs choir, we had a group sing-a-long to end the evening.

Here's where we came in for our budget:

Food (including candy canes) ...........$383

20 pies..................................................$120

sturdy paper plates.............................$20

paper plus 3 vinyl table cloths.............$15

Kids Crafts ............................................$35

raffia, paper sacks, misc decor............$20

entertainment.......................................$0

good time had by all.............................priceless!

TOTAL..................................................$593

Oh - and on a side note...everyone seemed to like the haystacks, though none of them had ever heard of it before. I did learn 2 things - I needed to have more rice and next time use minute rice. Don't worry - the recipe on the link has been modified.

So, that was our party, and I was glad that those who came enjoyed it. It was simple and sweet and yet still a lot of work. My feet were killing me by the end of the evening, but everyone was so great in helping with the clean-up.

I've already got the next year of church activities planned out and can't wait to get started. I'll be sure to keep you posted!