Christmas RS Activity

Sorry to those of you who already saw this on facebook - but it was a lot of work and turned out so well, I have to share it here, too!

Last night was our ward's relief society Christmas party (I'm the activities leader), and we had such a great time!!

We set up a red and green dessert buffet and it was *glorious*!!

In its entirety:

Pictures from left to right:

Ok please notice the paper-covered Hershey bars on the right - forgot to get a close-up of them. THANK YOU Pattees for the Slice awesomeness; I used it SO much for this activity!! Everyone should have a Slice machine!!

We threw bowls of chopped fruit (another fabulous board member) in there too to justify all of the sugar :)

and close-ups on the details:

this was a hurricane vase with limes & water in it and red tissue poms as "flowers"

My ward randomly has like 4 people in it who do professional-grade cake decorating; these cupcakes were made by a lady on my board and were awesome.

Another lady on my board made sugar cookies and asked her husband to help decorate them; as soon as she saw his vs. hers he inherited the whole project. They are awesome!

She said he put the Go-Gos because women could relate to that band haha, and Wonder Woman

AC/DC - this one was my favorite

Batman & Robin

The top right is a lady knitting - so RS appropriate haha. I ended up eating the Green Lantern one in the middle in honor of my spouse

Another board lady made these phyllo dough cherry cheesecakes. Rad.

Finally, a nod to our dear Bakerella, cake bites! They were exquisite.

Candy canes for the smaller vases

This was my favorite feature - I hot glued candy canes to the top of the vase and ribbon on the bottom. They look great! I think I'll put some flowers in them and give them away for Christmas presents

Chocolate mints. I felt like such a doofus, I bought all these dutch mints from the expensive candy store in the mall and then even with a space filler in the middle of the jar I didn't have enough candy. I was stressing about it until - DUH - I was in Target and saw mint m&m's. So much cheaper and filled my space right up. Now I have like a whole jar left over and with how addicting these are, I'm in trouble.

For our table decor I had sisters sign up to decorate 1/2 a table each with their favorite children's Christmas book (we had a children's book drive, too, so it went with that theme). They turned out so great, everyone loved the decor!

that's a bathrobe under the decor for the Polar Express

This one was my favorite - thanks for the book last year, moms!!

I thought this was really neat - she put a list of interpretations for the 12 days of Christmas; for example, the partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ.

Someone had this hand-stitched Christmas tree made with the words from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas - so cool.

For our activity we did a service white elephant party. Each sister donated a service that she was willing to do - didn't matter how big or small, just whatever they were comfortable with. We put all the cards in a basket and passed it around.

Each person would choose a card, then pass the basket. Then the next person could choose to steal a card that'd already been picked or pick a new one.

Each card could only be stolen one time before it was "dead". I admit being a little nervous about how this would play out, but it was fantastic. Everyone really enjoyed it and we were all laughing the whole time.

this sister took off running when another one came to steal her card hahaha
after a lap around the tables she finally conceded. :)

I came away with the best thing of all - one of our ladies is a personal trainer and she gave 3 1-hour personal training sessions, woohoo! Merry Christmas (in May) to me!

We had cellophane bags with Christmas paper toppers on them at the end so everyone could take treats home to their families/visiting teachers or give them as gifts to someone else. Love that I didn't have a zillion pounds of sugar left over to take home. :)

It was such a great activity, I am so impressed with how everyone - especially my wonderful board - pulled together and made it such a fantastic evening.

Special thanks needs to go to my dear husband, who came straight from a 12-hour day (after only 5 hours of sleep 2 nights in a row) to the church to heft tables and vases, organize the nursery, and decorate; then take it all down and load it in the car and subsequently up the stairs to our apartment afterward. He is such a hero to me and didn't complain once the whole evening, just told me he loved me and was happy my hard work had paid off. I'm a blessed, blessed woman and I love that kind man with all of my heart.

love, mary