Ward Christmas Party

When I got called into the Relief Society presidency at the beginning of November, one of the first items on our agenda was planning the Ward Christmas party. One of our ward members suggested we put together a "Kids-Tell-the-Christmas-Story" type video using our primary kids. It sounded like a fabulous idea, and we just happen to have a professional videographer in our ward. He graciously agreed to use his time, talents, and equipment to help make the idea come to life. 

We have too many kids in our primary to interview them all, so we split the primary roughly in half. We tried to interview at least one kid from every family. During the interview process, we spent about 3 minutes per kid asking questions about the nativity story. We filmed during the last 2 hours of church one day, and Aubree and her friend Lily were super helpful in getting kids to and from their primary classes.

We invited the other half of the kids to get in costume and act out the nativity. We snuck in to the Stake Celebrate the Nativity event early one Saturday to take advantage of the elaborate manger scene (okay, so we didn't really sneak... the organizers of the event happen to be in our ward and also serve as the primary chorister and pianist and they were more than happy to help).

It was a little nutso trying to get so many kids in costume (we also took advantage of the Celebrate the Nativity costume closet) and ready to be on camera, but amazingly, we were done in 45 minutes.

We showed the 10 minute video as the main program part of our Christmas party. 

 

If I do say so myself, the video is incredible! Our family has watched it at least 15 times and it never gets old. Obviously, we like it because we know all the kids, but even if the kids are strangers, Brother Heller still did a phenomenal job.

Click HERE for a link to check out the Christmas video yourself.

The rest of the Christmas party was a lot of fun. In addition to the video, the highlights included:

*A table full of beautiful cakes for dessert, 

*The now-expected ward band songs (Aubree joined in on her violin),

and a rambunctious sing-along to finish off the evening.

This party marks the year anniversary of us being a ward. We've come a long way, from strangers to family.