Sunday, December 14, 2014

Pajama Party

Our church has undergone some big changes over the last couple of years. Some of those changes came with a lot of sadness and left us feeling a bit discouraged. Recently, though, we've seen healing and growth that is heartwarming.

One if the changes was a loss of a full-time youth director. She had previously done so much work and organized many great events for the kids. With her resignation came a lot of reorganization, which is not always an easy thing. What I've noticed now, a year later, is a lot of people stepping up to the plate, so the speak. 

New events keep popping, organized by parents and other volunteers. This past Friday night they organized a Polar Express Party. As with many of these events, entire families were there having fun together. We all wore our Jammie's and went as groups from one station to another. 


We followed train track to lead the way to stations where we decorated and ate cookies...


... Played in piles of shaving cream "snow"...


... Made decorations and had coloring contests. 


 I am showing close-up photos of only our granddaughters and not the faces of other kids since I didn't ask for parental permission to show the others. There were over 60 kids there!

There was a white elephant gift exchange. I was worried Elise , at age 2, wouldn't quite understand the funky gifts but a small miracle occurred as she received a My Little Pony. She was so very excited! I was so relieved!


Cordy received stationery cards and wasn't thrilled at first but later was planning how she could leave secret letters to make people happy. I love that girl.

At each "station" the kids received a mark on their ticket. At the last station they realized their marks came together to spell JESUS.  


They all sat down while Mike told a story that brought home the message that Christmas is really all about Jesus.

Then, things got wild with an indoor snowball fight. Ok, the snowballs were made out of newspaper. The kids loved it!


The adult leaders then had a contest to see which team could clean up the fastest... A stroke of genius!


I love when a congregation serves as our larger family.  In January we will be having Saturday Talent Sharing Day. Different folks will be teaching others such things as Intro to Drumming, How to Play Cribbage, Crocheting, How to Improve Your Golf Swing, and more! Doesn't that sound wonderful?  The week after that we are going cross country skiing together. 

It is so wonderful to see so many people maybe stepping a bit out of their comfort zone to do more together. Do any of you have ideas you'd like to share of events your congregations sponsor?

6 comments:

Maria Rose said...

Cordelia is writing letters with her stationery this very moment.

Anonymous said...

The Children sure looked like they were having a great time: God Bless U all.....

Susan said...

Oh my! They sure did have fun. The noise level was something tremendous and at they end they all received wooden train whistles!

Mom said...

I love that me and Grandpa each received one on our pillows. She is so sweet!

Tina said...

That sounds like a blast! Would be fun to do it here!

Sue said...

It was a fun night to be a kid, for sure!

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