Christmas Family Party, Dec. 17

Well, that last post has been sitting in draft mode since October! Shame on me! Jump ahead to December. For the second year now we have hosted the Christmas party for Duane's side of the family. We have everyone bring an inexpensive gift for an exchange. The gifts get traded around, and this big chocolate chip cookie traded hands several times. Ethan didn't end up with it, but I think it stayed in his family!

Aunt Betty, the godmother of Duane and all his brothers and sisters, is always invited. We often say she must not have known what she was getting into!

Duane's sister, Bonnie, showing the gift she ended up with.

There are lots more pictures of family members, but this is enough to give you the idea. After the gift exchange we had a lasagna dinner. Then we did a cookie exchange. It was a fun night. The night before we had a Christmas party with Duane's step family, and they are a large crowd, too. It was at his dad's house, and they did a turkey/ham dinner with all the fixings. So, it was a really busy weekend. I spent Saturday morning making the lasagna, then Saturday afternoon at the party. Saturday night we did some last minute decorating and cleaning the house.

Sunday we rushed home from church to get ready for our Christmas party here. It was all fun, but a very tiring weekend.