Gospel Group Christmas Dinner

Last night was our first ever Gospel Group Christmas dinner. We've really been looking forward to hosting it and doing a really nice Christmas dinner where we can all just hang out. I had planned to bust out the fine china and crystal, so I spent Tuesday night removing it all from the basement (that was a challenge in and of itself), Wednesday setting it up and deciding how we could seat 11 people, a toddler and a baby comfortably, and Thursday finishing up some food items for the actual meal. David and I had a great time working on it. I couldn't have gotten it done without my hubby either! Here are some initial set-up pictures...

This is the living room table, Eddie, Sheena, Chase (JJ and Mandy's friend), JJ, and Mandy sat here...

The dining room table...David, Me, Nick, Christie, Matt and Diana sat here.

It was so much fun for me to set this all up. As hard as it is to store, keep clean, clean up, and store again, using your china for special occasions is so much fun. We haven't had too many opportunities to use it and this was so much fun. We all ate, talked, laughed, ate some more, and then played white elephant. For dinner I made a ham (on Tripp and Mom's recommendation) and a hashbrown casserole (Kathy's recipe) and Mandy brought a broccoli casserole, Diana brought salad, Nick and Christie brought pumpkin cheesecake, and Eddie and Sheena brought chips and salsa. We had tons of food and it was all delicious.

Aislyn always manages to find something to play with at our house...we were pleasantly surprised when she decided to walk around in this all night. :)

Dinner time! It was a snug fit but we made it work and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. David and I talked and talked after eveyone left about how fun it had been, how thankful we are for everyone, and how nice it is to have people we can truly share things with in Kansas City.

Aislyn helped everyone open their gifts during white elephant...

Matt was really proud of his wooden game set.

JJ was the proud recipient of David and I's contribution to the game...

Aislyn even got her own present.

Whole group shot. Love these guys!

As I pulled out all of our china and crystal to have a celebration with our Kansas City church family, I was quickly reminded of our Little Rock church family and the fact that it is because of their generosity at our wedding that we could do something like this. What a blessing to have been completely "set up" by the people who helped mold us into the people that we are. Now we can share that blessing with other people that we love.

It's almost Christmas break! We have our whole Sunday School class party tonight, I've got a baby shower in the morning, and then we have GOT to finish up our Christmas shopping!

Tis the season to be jolly...fa la la la la, la la la la!