4-H Christmas Party by Cliff

Sitting beside the fire on a Sunday evening reminiscing about our day.  Earlier we enjoyed a wonderful coffee hour at our church with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  After eating too many sweets, conversing with friends and taking photos of our children with the jolly couple, we headed home.  The children and I tended to the animals in the barn while Deb prepared lunch and wrapped the presents for our 4-H club (Showstoppers) gift exchange Christmas dinner party.

Our 4-H club, the Showstoppers is comprised of really great people.  We feel fortunate to be associated with such caring folks.  This evening we met at the Lisle Fire Station for our Christmas party.  Everyone contributed to the dinner and enjoyed a delicious meal.  Following the meal, the children participated in the gift exchange.  At a previous meeting they all drew names and kept their drawings a secret.  It was all revealed tonight.  The children called each other up one at a time and sat with that child as they opened this.her gifts.  There were many expressions of gratitude, excitment and giggles.  The parents were busy taking photos, commenting on how thoughtful the gifts were and how they seemed to fit each child's personalities and interests. 

Following the gift exchange, the children participated in their photo contest.  At our previous meeting in November they participated in a photography lesson.  The children were instructed to take photos and enter one in a contest during the Christmas party.  After all of the votes were counted Sarah's and Rose's photos tied with the same number of votes.  The story behind Sarah's photo is as follows: she asked me to video her and Flash jumping at our hobby farm.  Sarah then viewed the video and created the photo by taking a screen shot from the video (see the photo listed on this page).  Both Sarah and Rose (who took a photo of a friend riding her horse down a dirt road near a field) were rewarded with horse themed photo frames for their pictures.

The evening concluded with the parents cleaning up (I volunteered as dishwasher) as the children were busy socializing over their presents and expressing their desires for a snow day tomorrow (the weather forecast is predicting snow and ice). On the drive home, Alicia, Sarah, Julia, Deb and I listened and sang along to FM 103.3 (24 hours of Christmas music for the month of December).  We also reflected on the 4-H party and what a wonderful time we had spent with some really nice, wholesome people.