what is christmas REALLY all about?

The YW were in charge of our Ward Christmas party this year. 

After going back and forth on a theme, we settled on a Charlie Brown Christmas, "What is Christmas REALLY all about?"

After a lot of time and stress, it all came together.

Our second counselor, Jessica, hand made all these little Charlie Brown characters.  It looked perfect!

 We decided on NO dinner and stuck with cookies and hot chocolate.  I was nervous we would run out of cookies but we had PLENTY!!!

 Our Laurel advisor, Michelle, made the Snoopy house AND the psychiatric booth.  Again, more talent.

 The hallways were full of snowflakes

 I was on the hunt for a stable.  I knew we had one from previous Christmas parties but couldn't find it any where.  I was tired of trying to hunt it down and just asked Kent to MAKE me one.  I'm thankful for a handy husband to do this last minute.

 After rotating through rooms doing things like making crafts, playing Christmas music on music chimes, writing letters to our missionaries serving, and eating cookies, we all came together as a ward for a few musical numbers from our EQ and Primary.  We also had a little video made from the primary kids about what THEY thought Christmas was about.  It was too cute.  We ended the night with a remake play of Charlie Brown's Christmas by the youth.  It was perfect.  We ended singing Silent Night as a ward.  While we were singing I couldn't help but get a tad teary eyed just thinking about the Christmas season and also out of gratitude that everything came together and was a successful night.