Christmas Around the World

The Christmas parties have begun...
I'm okay with that though. I love a good party, and this one was great.
It was for my Church and the theme was Christmas around the world.
There were displays from different countries, and trivia given about other countries' Christmas traditions through out the night.

My dad was in the army when we were kids and for a few years we lived in Belgium.
While we were there we adopted their tradition of putting our shoes out by the door on Dec. 6th for St. Nicholas to fill with candy and small presents, and we would leave carrots for his donkey. It was a tradition we enjoyed so much that even after we came back to the U.S. we continued doing it for several more years. (if we remembered to) Heck, what kid wouldn't want 2 Christmas celebrations? The more candy and gifts the better. ;)

The party tonight was planned by a Hawaiian family so you know we ate well!
We ate a delicious dinner of pineapple glazed ham, "funeral potatoes" (or what ever you call them), rolls and jello. That was followed by a large assortments of pies- that we had too much of! One of these days, probably after Christmas, we're going to try giving up sugar, but I'll tell you more about that another day. (it's something I've been mulling over for a while now and just have to get the guts to try) My favorite part, as always at these functions, was just visiting with all our great friends!

My kids and I ended up at the craft table where I think I had more fun than they did making things. They colored while I made them both headbands out of sparkly pipe cleaners. I made Aiden a holly berry wreath and Emma some reindeer antlers.
Doesn't she just make the cutest reindeer?