Charlie Brown Christmas Play & Christmas Crafts With Friends!

On December 18th, our church put on a Kids Production called A Charlie Brown Christmas. They had been working for months and months and it turned out so cute! 

You can see some of the set. Jonathen made Snoopy's Dog House & Lucy therapy stand and Pa made the wall. The wall actually was double-sided so turned it around during the play. One side was the brick and the other side looked like a wooden fence. 

Owen was what they called a Stage Ninja. He was part of the team that helped move the props around during the scenes. 

Jackson was part of the play...he was a Wise Guy. It was hilarious...they were rappers singing a song about Jesus. Part of the lines were..."Who's in the house? JC's in the house!" 

They had fake facial hair and everything. The funniest thing was one of the Wise Guy's mustaches fell off and they couldn't find it. It was a few days later and Jackson found it stuck to the bottom of his shoe!!! 

 

The Wise Guys - Jack, Josh & Jeremiah! 

Dan & Abby that are real life brother and sister played Charlie Brown & Lucy. They did such a great job! 

Aaron played Snoopy and he honestly could barely see out of his costume. At one point in time he wasn't in the correct spot on the stage and in a simply genius move Josiah who played Linus just called Snoopy over to him by snapping his fingers and patting his leg just like you would call a dog in real life. I didn't even know he was adlibbing I thought it was part of the play. 

Linus, Snoopy and Sally played by Josiah's real life sister Caitlynn! 

Later that day the Storer Family came over for our annual Dinner & Craft Night. 

I had seen a video online how you can take those craft paper houses and use white hot glue to make them look like gingerbread houses with frosting. 

Kim bought all the supplies for us. The houses were significantly smaller than we thought they would be, but that ended up being okay. It was actually a really tough craft and if they had been bigger it would have taken forever to do one! 

Of course hot glue is hot glue so there were lots of strings we had to deal with! 

Since we only had two glue guns the kids had to take turns working on their houses. 

I wasn't even sure if the older boys would want to make one, but they came down. 

Owen opted out of doing the craft and I'm pretty sure moving forward if the craft we do doesn't involved dessert he'll probably pass! 

I think next year we'll make sure it's some kind of treat to decorate!

Living Nativity Is Back!

After years and years of being closed due to construction and then Covid...The Living Nativity was back!!!! We were so ecstatic when we found out and even better Christina's parents happened to be in town and so did Logan so we had an even bigger crowd with us.

Our first stop was at Red Lobster in Tacoma to celebrate Mom's birthday. We basically had the whole back room to ourselves. They did end up sitting another family in there with us and as we left we apologized since we were so loud. It's hard not to be loud when there's that many people. They honestly didn't seem to mind really! 

We arrived prior to the event opening which was on purpose we wanted to be waiting in line and be one of the first groups through. We all changed into warmer clothes and then got a group picture! 

Logan had an audiology appointment on Friday afternoon so she actually came with us to the Women's Christmas Dinner on Friday night, to the Living Nativity on Saturday and then church on Sunday morning. It was so fun having her with us the whole weekend. Of course Ella and her were in heaven! 

Waiting around for the event to start! 

It was so fun that Christina's parents were able to be here. They've came to this once before, but it's fun to see over and over. 

Mama being silly! 

The Roman Soldiers standing outside the gate into Bethlehem. 

The pathway is lined with those flaming torches. 

Since they had been closed down for so long they were able to revamp the show a bit. Something new before you even went into Bethlehem was a flashback in time to when Mary was visited by the angel telling her she was going to carry a child and she was to call him Jesus. 

When it was time to come in the Roman Soldiers asked you your family name and how many people were in your family. The scribe was writing down all that information. 

As you walked in you past the Roman Armory.

When you first enter the city you are right in the marketplace where people are "selling" all sorts of goods like bread, wool or even live animals.

This is the tax collectors booth. The one sitting down is a friend of Pa's...he used to work with him at Boeing. He's the reason we found out about this event years ago. 

The oil lamps were cool. I actually have one I've just never lit it! 

The wool merchant even had sheep you could pet. 

We thought the sign was funny since it said Kids For Sale! 

I like to play along and see how much in character people will stay. I went up to the Innkeepers and asked if they'd seen my cousin Mary. I said that she was great with child. They got a bit tripped up by that and just kept saying there was no room at the inn. Finally one of the guys said something like he thought he remembered someone fitting that description and they sent her away. 

After the marketplace we are ushered into a tent to hear from the Magi. I love this part it always gives me chills because they are discussing the prophecies from the book of Isaiah that talk about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. 

 

After that you walk out of the tent and your focus is purposefully directed one way, but I remembered that they had Angels that startle you so I was prepared, but they still made me jump. 

After hearing the Good News from the Angels you get to go up to the stable and see Joseph, Mary and Jesus. 

At the end of the path there is this sign that points to the cross and his future return. Such a great reminder! 

The Living Nativity is at one church and then right across the street this other church always opens it's doors for you to fellowship afterwards. They have candy canes and hot chocolate for free. They also have pieces of pie for purchase. It's so nice to go inside and get warmed up after being outside for so long. 

All these sweet kids! 

There was this nice big fireplace that we decided to go sit by and get warmed up.

 

Snuggling on the couch together! 

I love that Pa still wears his old business hat that says Duke's Welding on it! That hat is probably as old if not older than me! 

Then we thought we should have someone take a group shot! And even though Jack is giving Owen moose ears it's honestly one of my favorite pictures ever!!! 

If you've never gone to the Living Nativity in Gig Harbor put it on your calendar for next year. It's always the first weekend in December and it's worth the drive and almost free unless you want to buy a piece of pie! :) 

Women's Christmas Dinner 2022!

Our Women's Christmas Dinner was on Friday, December 2nd. I was asked by the Women's Ministry Leader back in May to be the speaker at this event. I said I needed to pray about it and I did. I knew that God was calling me out of my comfort zone and I just needed to take the leap and say yes...so I did. Fast forward months and I still had no idea what I was going to talk about. I think it was sometime in October I told Michael I needed to just go have sometime with God and so that's what I did. I holed myself up in my bedroom for hours one Saturday and when I came out I had most of my talk finalized. It felt so good! A few weeks after that I fine tuned it and was ready to go. Not to say that I wasn't extremely nervous because I was! 

Mom and I decided to do a tree theme with our table this year. She has all these pretty wooden trees that she decorates with at Christmas. We used the red buffalo checked napkin since they remind me of a lumberjack shirt. We also bought pinecone napkin holders and these paper chargers that look like tree rounds. They were so cool! Our gift to our ladies were these cute pinecone ornaments. 

Since I was the speaker we got the table right down in front next to the stage. Pa was asked to build a star to put in place of the cross during the Christmas season. It turned out so gorgeous and went perfectly with our Christmas Dinner theme which was The Star of Christmas. 

Our table was also right next to one of the big Christmas Trees! 

I always sign Michael up to be a server during the dinner, but this was the first time I signed up the boys as well. Owen was especially not that excited about having to dress up nice, but they both did such a great job! 

After the event, Michael is usually telling me how they could have done things differently in regards to serving. I've been trying to get him to lead this portion of the night for years and he's finally agreed that he will lead this next year! 

Nancy playing the harp is one of my favorite parts of whole the night! 

Here were the ladies at my table. Unfortunately Miss Ruth left before we were able to get a picture. We also were the only table that had the pleasure of having a guy sit at our table. Stephanie who's in the very back...her husband Scott was playing the piano while she led us in carols for the night so he joined us for dinner. They also wrote a song for the evening that was based on my talk. They asked me to send them my notes and they wrote a song off of that. It was incredible!!! 

My portion of the night went great and even thought I was nervous I don't think I showed it too badly. I had lots of ladies compliment me on my talk and while that's not why I did it is really nice to hear that the words the Lord gave me to say resonated with those listening. 

This is always feels like the official kickoff to the Christmas season for me and it absolutely did not disappoint!