Ward Christmas Party

Last night was our ward's christmas party. Since I'm in Young Women's I've been hearing about this party for about the last 3 months. I knew it would be big and extravagant mainly because I've heard that as far as ward parties goes this is what they focus all of their time and energy on. We were suppose to dress up as people in Bethlehem would have dressed. So yesterday I hauled my boys over to Walmart to look at the $1.00 fabric and let them pick what they wanted to wear. Logan picked his first and I knew Porter would want the same thing as him. Then Logan didn't want to be the same and wanted to change his so he and Porter didn't have to match. I told them they didn't have a choice in being different and bought what we had already picked out. I basically just cut a hole through the top piece of the fabric, tied some twine around their waist and viola, shepherd boys. They loved them and were so excited to dress up.

Our Shepherd Family

So we all were dressed up, (yes even Brandon participated, gasp! It was a shocker he did it willingly). We arrived, sang some Christmas hymns and then walked through the over flow which was turned into the path to Bethlehem. We were given bags of coins to buy our food and trinkets, and then entered the city with some overzealous Roman Soldiers, and other towns people. We have an artist in our ward who was drawing portaits of people. Logan found him instantly and waited patiently in line for about 20 minutes and then sat still for about another 15 minutes. He was very intrigued with how this guy was drawing and was very proud of his finished project. Other things they had that we could buy were ornaments, hand made soaps, our name in Hebrew, a Bishop Family Journal to keep our family record in, potted drinking cups, and tons and tons of food. As a spectator it was a lot of fun. But man I would not have wanted to put that together or to clean it up.
Here's the boys with Logan's Portrait and Brandon's Portrait. There was no hope for Porter in sitting still that long. When Mary and Joseph came walking through the town he decided to throw a conniption and had to be removed from the area. He then took a drink of water from the drinking fountain and dribbled all down the front of him and started freaking out that he ruined his Halloween costume. We left shortly after that.

The other day Logan and I were walking in the store and he turned to me and said, "Mom Christmas isn't all about the decorations!" I was a little taken aback by this and a little proud, so I wanted to see where he was going to go with this and asked him, "that's right, what is Christmas all about?" He got a big old grin and said, "PRESENTS!" Oh how my heart broke, I felt like such a failure. I explained to him it was about the birth of Jesus and the hope that he brought into the world. So last night after the program which he intently listened to I asked him what Christmas was all about and he said, "Not just the activities, but presents too." Sigh! What is a mother suppose to do. Some day he'll learn right?