Party hard?

Oh. My. Gosh.

We went to a family Christmas party for our church's Awana workers. The party lasted from 2 pm to 8 pm. By the time it was over, I was so beyond "ready to go" that I can't honestly remember if I said goodbye. It was quite a lot of fun, but six hours for a party was just a bit too much for me.

It was supposed to be from 2 pm to 6 pm. That's a bit long anyway, but they did have activities planned for everyone. The problem was that most people didn't show up until almost 3 pm! We were late starting with everything.

The host's house is on about 10 acres of land, complete with a stream and a pond. The children had a wonderful time playing in and around the stream, and they even fished for a bit since the pond is stocked with fish. Sass has been sick for the last few days, so I tried to keep her inside most of the time. (I knew that it was a lost cause with Spyder from the beginning.) The hosts have two girls who are a few years older than Sass, so we played with their little animal toys for an hour or so. After that first hour, she got bored with the toys, so she did end up going outside with Skeeter and Spyder for a while.

After a couple hours of play, we all came inside and had a huge barbeque feast. During the feast, Michael Ann remembered that the children had a special choir practice at 6. YIKES! We had at least six of the choir members there! Michael Ann took the children to choir practice while the rest of us cleaned up and played Secret Santa. We were into a mean game of men vs. women Pictionary when the children got back.

As soon as they were back, the hostess had them play a kind of musical chairs with a wrapped gift, which they all thought was just excellent. At the end, they all got to open the gift and pick a toy out of it. I'll have to remember that game for our fiesta.

It was really fun, but with having such a busy week and being sick, it was just a little bit too much party for me.