Christmas Eve

 Maren invited Neal and I out to her home for Christmas Eve dinner and games.  Maren fixed a delicious ham dinner with funeral potatoes, rolls and veggies.  It was delicious.  After dinner she had planned some fun games.  The first one was a bunch of strings coming up through a toilet paper roll.  At the end of the string was a colored bow that matched the bow on a plastic up at the table.  What ever string you pulled determined what cup you got.  Under each cup there was a prize.  Two of the cups had a not so fun prize underneath them.

Greg came up with the Nothing gift.  

I came up with a $5.00 bill as my prize.  It was a fun game.

After this game she had wrapped some gifts and lined them up in a circle on the floor.  Everyone had to stand by a gift and then Maren had me read a story and every time "left" or "right" came up in the story the group moved accordingly.  At the end of the story you got the prize you were standing by.  Then they went in order and could either open their gift or trade it for someone else's.  It was fun and I think most of them ended up with what they wanted.  

They were all energy drinks of different kinds.  Some of the kids traded one for one, but mostly kept what they had.  

We also watched a short movie made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the birth of the Savior.  It was beautiful.  A nice way to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Thanks Maren for having us out for a delicious dinner and a fun evening.  Oh, I will add here that their little dog bit me on the leg when I came in the door.  Not sure why she zeroed in on me but I got it.  Apparently she also bit Greg's mom a few weeks ago.  So apparently she doesn't like grandmothers!!  No harm done.  No skin pierced, just a little bruise.  :-)

Cute picture of my kids.