The Annual White Elephant Christmas Party

Another year of holiday preparation would not be complete without the planning and prep for the Annual White Elephant Christmas Party! Dana and I start planning for this event months in advance! We start by picking a date! This year, there was a conflict for Dana and her family holiday gatherings, so we decided to have the party a week earlier than usual.  Needless to say, we were at full-capacity this year! Most everybody was in town this year to partake in the celebration! 

Party favors in progress.

The annual Christmas party is chalked-full of rich traditions that we all cherish. Sometimes, traditions must meet their ends. The Cheap Trick DVD was originally gifted at a party before I was in the picture. It was re-gifted for years, my favorite was the "Sheep-Trix" gift that Anna gave. 

Last year (2013 Christmas party), the was a mix-up with the DVD. We weren't sure who had it, so we purchased a second copy of the DVD off of Amazon. At this year's party (2014) the original copy was gifted again and the replacement copy made an appearance in a frame on display.

Like I mentioned before, everybody was in town this year and everybody was able to attend the party. We had quite the crowd! 

Cara and Julie raise a glass to toast the holiday season!

I love Kim's photo bombs!

Roozing, Antonio, and Abby and Sean Piggot!  

New traditions bring new friends! Jeff and Debbie live two doors up from our house. We love them and were excited to invite them to be a part of the tradition!

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The photo booth made an appearance this year. It was bigger and better and accompanied by some make-shift karaoke. I will let your imagination envision what garage karaoke looks like for a bunch of 30-somethings!

Lindsay, Sarah, Dana, Sandra, Natalie, myself, Wintre, Jenn, and Kim.

The traditional White Elephant gift exchange!

Because of the large crowd, we may have to make some changes to the gift exchange next year! It took about two hours and we opted out of the twist at the end because everybody had lost interest (many had to relieve their baby sitters)! 

Another tradition, on it's second year!

Debbie, myself and Lindsay.

Sean, Jeremy, Ernie and Mark. 

I hope this game will become an annual tradition. Thank you to Wes and Cara for running this fun game and providing a prize for the winner! 

Thanks for the fun photo montage Dana! 

Another fabulous party, embracing traditions old and new! We are so blessed to have so many incredible friends to celebrate the holiday season with. We look forward to next year!

Merry Christmas!