Party Time

The next task at hand was getting the preparations for the company Christmas party completed.  I can honestly say that besides placing a food order for the catering and making the party invitations, I was zero help in making this party come together.  The whole effort and success of the party goes to Chris.  He did it all.  He wanted something fun, where people could laugh and relax and not be too serious, so he decided to have a casino night and managed to pull it all together.  We had a white elephant gift exchange, a "Dundie"award ceremony, and throughout the night prizes were given out.  We ensured that nobody left empty handed.  The casino portion consisted of 3 tables, a roulette, a black jack, and a poker table.  Each person was given the same amount of chips and given one hour to get their pot as big as they could.  If they happened to lose all their chips they had to do something embarrassing in order to get back in (fyi- watching grown men do kart wheels is hilarious).  At the end of the hour first, second, and third place winners were awarded with gift cards.

All the time and energy that went into this night was worth it.  The evening was a blast!  Chris got so many compliments on how it was the best company party they had ever been to.  Needless to say I was pretty proud of him.  He knows how to throw quite the party.

The office transformed.

Chris announcing some winners.

Casey enjoying himself and proving you are never too old for bunny ears.

Slumber Party

As we considered ways to bring the Spirit of Christmas into our home we knew we needed a kid...... so we borrowed one.  And the lucky kid was Mya of course.  We planned on a little sleepover and while she was here we talked about what she wanted from Santa, listened to Christmas songs, ate dinner and played with the new toy from her meal, watched as she decorated a ginger bread house for the center of my table, devoured a big bowl of ice cream, and right before bed we watched the Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol dvd that I had recently purchased.  Chris and I love it because it takes us back to our childhoods and it was fun to be able to introduce Mya to it.  This dvd has 4 short stories on it, one of them is call "Small One".  Have you seen it?  I never had and either had Chris, but it is so good for a Christmas cartoon, I was in tears.  I mean I was actually sobbing.  It had such a good story line.  Chris couldn't help laughing at me and Mya was so confused as to why I was crying.  But anyway......  She seemed to enjoy the stories because as soon as it was over she requested to watch it again.  

She threw a fit when she had to go home the next day, so I am taking that as a great sign that the sleep over was a success.  

Oh Christmas Tree

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was our official kickoff in our attempts at squeezing all of our Christmas traditions in before our journey home.  It didn't leave much time considering I was overloaded with church obligations and Chris with work obligations, but none the less we dove in head first and have had a blast celebrating Christmas here.

My excitement for putting up a tree was high, considering all of my Christmas decorations are still in a storage unit in Idaho, but I knew what it felt like to go without a tree and refused to let that happen again no matter what.  So off we went and loaded our arms with balls, gift tags (that I would convert into ornaments), lights, and ribbon.  The next stop was Lowes, where we found the cutest little 5 footer.  We took it all home, set up the tree, strung up the lights, and as I looked around at our sad little collection of ornaments I knew it was missing something.  It was missing that something that takes a tree from just any ordinary tree to "your" tree.  And so I pondered and thought and pondered some more and finally it came to me.....  I asked Chris to pop me some popcorn, I grabbed the needle and thread, put on a Christmas movie, hunkered down on the couch and off we set to make our popcorn garland.

The pictures are awful.  The only reason I am putting them on here is to show proof that Chris and I strung each one, it was a little tedious, but Chris once again proved that he is amazing at the most unexpected tasks.  If he was in a race to string popcorn he would win hands down.  He is so speedy. Me..... not so much, I am way too much of a perfectionist.

But boy was I right about the garland.  It was exactly what the tree needed.  Chris even commented that he really liked the tree this year and so do I.  So even without all our sentimental ornaments the tree still shined.

I'm totally smitten with the popcorn garland.  

Burrup Family Christmas Tree 2011