When our “girls” decided (a few years ago) that they would always make the Christmas meal and we would provide the place, I resisted a bit, but with our busy past few weeks, I was grateful that all I had to do was clean the house and prepare the garage and coffee and punch.

Roy and Deb arrived with a pretty floral arrangement as a hostess gift.

When it was meal time, I tried to get a few pictures. These three are always so cooperative. 🙂 Josh and Jordan are drinking mocha punch.

Jenna wanted me to take a new picture for our refrigerator, so she smiled nicely.

Kristen and Jere just happened to be there when I had my camera.

Meal time!

Ham balls, mixed vegetable casserole, and refrigerator potatoes.

Rolls by Abby.

Desserts

There was plenty of delicious food.

Our table full of 22 people.

After we were filled and the food put away, we sat down to prepare for the gift exchange by reading the Christmas story from Luke 2.

I made sure there were 22 slips of paper that told the story of Jesus birth.

I like mixing up the verses so it is not read in order.

We do it this way because we hear this story so many times during the Christmas celebration, that this makes them think about it in a different way.

There are only 20 verses, so I divided the two longest.

Nathaniel especially liked the verse that was given to him and wasn’t about to give it up when I was looking for a shorter verse for Jesse.

It was verse 7, and said, “ She gave birth to her first child, a son.” (He and Abby are expecting their first baby in May – our first great-grandchild. 🙂

Tomorrow night – The Gift Exchange.