Christmas Entertaining

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This past week we have held 3 Christmas parties and it has been so much fun. In our old house we could not host a lot of parties because it was too small and would cause tons of stress for us. Here, our living room is still not that big, but there's more house to spread out into, as well as a great patio in our backyard.

The living room all ready to go...

On Sunday, we had our worship team and youth leadership over for a total of 27 people, who ALL very joyfully crammed into our living room for a fun white elephant gift exchange. We turned the bedrooms into a "game room" (i.e. the boys' room with a large TV and the Wii set up), a "movie room" (i.e. our room where we put a TV and had the movie "Elf" playing), and for the backyard we borrowed an outdoor heater so people could eat out there and stay warm. Everyone seemed to have fun, and we had TONS of food that people brought. I whipped up a huge batch of spaghetti and a caesar salad, and then we had food ranging from restaurant ribs to pizza to homemade enchiladas and fried chicken. YUM!!!

Filled with some of our guests:

The "Game Room":

The Dining Room:

One of the tables of food (there were 2):

On Tuesday we had our church staff over for a traditional turkey dinner. Our pastor had poached the turkey overnight and it was the best turkey we have ever eaten. SO juicy and moist!! I got the recipe and recreated it for our family Christmas dinner yesterday. If you are cooking a turkey, visit this recipe to do it yourself. It really was easy!

The Church Staff Luncheon:

Last night we had my family over and had another turkey dinner, this time made by me. I loved setting the table, and made little placecards out of ornaments. Again, very easy and simple yet beautiful when the candlelight reflected off of the ornaments!

We also all took a drive to visit "Sleepy Hollow" which is a huge neighborhood near us where every house is connected by lights and they all have elaborate Christmas displays out front. Every night around 1000+ cars drive through the neighborhood, and our youth group has been selling hot chocolate and cider as a fundraiser. It is beautiful!! I'll try to post pictures soon, but you can view a few of them (not my own) here.

Tomorrow I'm going to post some of my very favorite recipes that I either ate or made this week, so if you're in need of some Christmas recipes this week, check back soon!