Fearsome words: "Will you be in charge of the Church Christmas party?" I don't believe in refusing Church assignments, so I accepted this one, extended on November 4 for the December 8, 2017 event. There was Thanksgiving and our trip to Seattle in between, and nine house guests and five Christmas parties at our house(s) soon after. I survived, with a little help from my friends! Looking back, it was great fun. One delight was having Jenny and Sam attend the party and pose at the photo booth manned by David.
Dave took pictures all evening and we passed out prints on Sunday. Our copies record the sweet, diverse people who make up our Church community. We love the Brintons and their son TJ. The Brintons have helped us appreciate young people with disabilities and the saintly parents who raise them.
The Moyles are one of the cute, young families moving into our neighborhood to lighten the mix of old-timers.
The Thomases are another fun, active young family. Their daughters have unique names--Mika, Ember, and Dagney--which Dave has memorized as their home teacher. I help the dad, Daniel, with his real estate development.
Annie Poelman, renowned radiologist, is not too dignified to sit on our saddle in full Mexican garb.
Peggy Spute is another dear friend. She is a former junior high science teacher and single sister who has served as both Primary President and Relief Society President in our Church.
Sonja Hales and her daughter are newly found cousins. When I took a genealogy class in our ward several years ago, I told Sonja's mother, Wilma Livsey, that I was going to Ireland to learn about my great-great-grandfather, James Hamilton. James Hamilton, it turned out, is Wilma's great-great-grandfather, too!
Hong and Julie Mu are our next door neighbors. They went to medical school in Shanghai and are now researchers at the University of Utah Medical School. They took us for dim sum one Saturday morning at the restaurant where SLC's Chinese community gathers, and we tend their huge goldfish when they travel back to China.
The highlight of the Christmas party was a live mariachi band. They wandered from table to table and we sang "Feliz Navidad" with them at the end of the evening. We ate homemade tamales from one of SLC's mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants, served with Mexican rice made by 10 Church ladies and roasted black beans made entirely by me. The Relief Society ladies provided a dessert buffet of tres leches cake, flan, key lime pie, and Mexican wedding cakes.
Our friends, Wayne and Robyn Petty, supervised the smashing of two pinatas--one for the teenagers and one for the little guys.
Dear Bill Edwards, in his eighties, shared the collection of Mexican fabrics, sombreros, and even a highly embroidered black "gaucho" suit which he assembled during the 1950s, while he was an LDS missionary in Mexico. We totaled our party guests at 120 and decided it was a success!
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