Porter Family Christmas Party

After Lexi's birthday party, we headed straight over to the Porter Family Christmas Party.  It's always fun because I love Shane's cousins.  :)  The family is so big that we hold it in a church building and do a pot luck luncheon.  After the lunch, Shane's Aunt Jennie (who organized it this year), said that she planned a quick game for everyone before we did the service project.  Everyone groaned because in past years there has always been some sort of lame games and/or singing, but Jennie promised that it would be fun.  And you know what?  

It was!

I'd never played this game before and I have no idea what the name of it is, but here's what you do:

everyone sits in a big circle and you pass around a small box with a pair of dice in it.  If you roll doubles, you run to the middle and start getting "dressed" in whatever is provided and once everything is on, you get to start unwrapping the present until the next person rolls doubles.  Make sense?  The clothing provided was a scarf, gloves, hat, and ski goggles and there were two sets so that one person could be taking them off while the new person who just rolled doubles starts getting dressed.  It doesn't sound funny, but trust me, it was hilarious!

I felt bad for the younger kids who would get all dressed just to have someone else roll doubles.

He was hilarious because just as he got everything on, the younger kid rolled doubles.  hahaha  He was all excited to be the one to open the present.

Ari loved watching.

Yes, Lexi had to wear one of her new princess dresses there.  :)

This guy was going SO fast and just ripping through the layers and layers and LAYERS of newspaper.

Success!  The present ended up being a large bag of candy for the kiddos and a gift card to a fast food place for the guy who opened it.  Win-win!  :D

 After the fun game, the service project was set up.  Shane's cousin, Erin, organized it (we've never done one before, but I loved the idea of everyone pitching in) and someone was a brilliant genius and brought movies and set them up in a separate room.  All of the kids (and some of the husbands hahaha) were kept happily occupied eating candy and watching movies so that we could actually get some work done.  

It was awesome.

  The service project was called "Shoeboxes for Veterans."

We took all the basic necessities (soap, toothbrush, shampoo, etc...) and stuffed it all into a shoebox, and wrapped the shoebox up in a coat (there were sock and a hat in each coat pocket, too).  It was a big success and we met our goal of getting 20 ready to go to the homeless shelter.  It was a good learning experience, too, for Kaden when I explained what we were doing and why.  I really want to get him (and the girls as they get older) focused less on the "me, me, ME!" of Christmas and more focused on the reason for the season.  Anyway, it was a fun get-together!