Women's Christmas Dinner!

The week before the Women's Christmas Dinner I had 2 or more kids home sick from school. I had to be at church for quite a lot of time that week. Not only was I trying to dot all my i's and cross all my t's for the dinner, but I was also trying to care for my kids and trying to not get sick myself. It was a crazy crazy week. 

Come Friday night everything went great. All the hard word from everyone on the team both the women's ministry team and the team of men volunteers really paid off. It was a beautiful night! 

Last year Mom and I had a table setting that focused on poinsettias. It was beautiful and we loved it, but we thought it would be fun to do something different. Since my Dad built all those wonderful cabins we decided to use the one he built for Mom and tie our theme around that. 

In order to lift the cabin up to make it more of a centerpiece we just used an Amazon box that had been stuffed with scrap wood. We covered the box with a blanket of fake snow you use for a Christmas Village. I bought some fun twinkle lights to put around the base. Twinkle lights make everything more festive. 

My Dad put Christmas lights on the cabin and even bought a Christmas tree for the inside. Normally the light on the inside has to be plugged in to get power, but Dad ended up mounting a flashlight to the ceiling inside the cabin so we didn't have to worry about cords. 

My friend Ashlee had used these awesome chunky wood chargers last year. I had asked her if she was doing the same theme this year and she said no. At that point we hadn't figured out what we wanted to do. Then mom mentioned that she'd love to get wood chargers. I texted Ashlee and she said we could borrow 6 of them since she was thinking of using 2 for part of her centerpiece. She had found the chargers at Ross so I went to the Ross by our house and found 1 and Dad went to the Ross by their house and found another one so we were all set. 

When I envisioned a cabin in the woods theme I knew we had to get some sort of lumberjack colors and these napkins were perfect. To add a little bit of whimsy we decided instead of plain white salad plates we'd use my mom's reindeer plates and matching glasses. Reindeer live in the woods right! The gift for each of our ladies was their coffee mugs. Each one had either a red or green knitted sweater wrapped around the mug. They were too cute to pass up at Target!! 

We ended up having 13 beautifully decorated tables...these are just a few of them. 

Gingerbread table....I loved it and think that gingerbread men aren't used in Christmas decor as much as they should be! 

This is classic Christmas to me...I love the red glasses! 

Lynette who is our tea party gal decorated her table with her Rose Cottage china which I think of as more for a tea party, but it really looked beautiful for Christmas!!! 

This theme was Away in a Manger. The lady that decorated this table actually built the manger with her Dad. 

This is my friend Ashlee's table. I love how she had 2 chargers...the greenery is so fun! 

I have always loved blue for a Christmas color! 

Each of the ladies made their tables look so beautiful and they were all unique. I love seeing what everyone comes up with. 

Nancy played the harp for us twice during the evening. 

Poor Caitlin had been sick the entire week leading up to the dinner, but thankfully she was feeling better. Brian was one of the men volunteers. He was a table server. My Dad was supposed to serve our table, but unfortunately it was his turn to have the crud. :( 

Rachael invited her friend Denise to come enjoy the evening. 

Love both these ladies! 

Jessica has sang a solo for us for the last few years. It's such a treat! 

Mariah McCleary was the speaker for the evening. She spoke two years ago and everyone loved her. She spoke about how God sent Jesus to be Immanuel God With Us and he really meant it. He wants to be with us....not behind us, not on the side of us, not out in front of us, but right there in the thick of the mess...with us! 

After the dinner we decided to get pictures by the big tree! 

Here's all the ladies that were at my table....back row L - R...Caitlin, Krista, me, Mom, Denise. Front row L - R...Rachael, Terrise and Michelle. It was so fun getting to talk with each of these ladies and enjoy the evening. 

One thing that we did differently this year was we had the event catered. We went with Olive Garden and got salad, breadsticks and then a pasta bar. It was fun for a change! We do need to work out some kinks of course since it was our first year, but overall I think it went very well. As for trying not to get sick...I was able to fend it off until after the dinner and then my body couldn't take it anymore. I ended up getting a horrible headache on Saturday night and I felt awful. I wasn't able to sing in the choir the next day and I spent all day Sunday and Monday either in bed or on the couch resting. Thankfully I wasn't down for nearly the amount of time the kids were.