Oh Christmas Parties, Oh Christmas Parties...

Ah, the joys of Christmas and rejoicing with friends and family... the latter hasn't come for me yet since my family has left me for more northern lands (i.e. Quebec), but I'm enjoying the friends part so far...

Last night, we had our Life Group Christmas party. Some yummy finger foods and a few games called for a fun night. And it was.

We started off with old fashioned green light - red light and octopus (as organized by Kyle). Then we played the "guess who you are according to the sticker on your back" game... at least that's my name for it. And then, my favorite, was the "compose a new song using a set of key words on the melody of"... We Three Kings... yeah, that one was my idea. But I was pretty impressed with the result.

We had star-shaped kytes, orange snow, and Teddybear coming to Life Group because he likes Jelly Beans... very original guys... Oh, and the knock knock, orange you coming in?... And the best one, Dina came up with a rhyme for orange... but you have to say it quickly, are you ready?.... door hinge! It worked in the song at least... Love it! One of the groups even presented their song with actions and all, and they won!

We ended the night singing some Christmas carols and chatting.

Then, tonight was our roommate Christmas party/dinner, the 5th year of such for me (which shows how long I've been living on my own now, wow!...). Of course, this year, rather than being with Michelle or Janine, it was with Bri and Stacey. But it was still lots of fun!

Brianna cooked us a yummy made-up-on-the-spot dish, a creamy coconut sauce with chicken and veggies, served with rice... sorta looked like a Cambodian coconut curry. Yaya! And then, Janine showed up with a Christmas gift: cookies!! They're really yummy too...

As has become the tradition, we conclude our evening with a gift exchange (monetary limit of 10 dollars per person). It was very original this year. My personnal highlight was the hat Bri got me... Like my new Russian style? She thought it would match well with my new winter coat (since it's black), but we quickly realized it looked a little more interesting than that, at least on me. I could barely squeak the words out for laughter as I tried to describe how it looked to me: like a shaved mullet dyed black... We were in stitches all night over it. Then, there's the tea light frog (that's that first picture up there... gotta get at least one froggy thing for Christmas every year)... and a pair of earrings and a cool cushion to match my bed cover. Thank you girls, you're such a blessing.