Fox Brothers Family Christmas Party

We are on Christmas break!!!!!!!!!  As of Monday, nobody (except Abe) has to do any school work, or practicing, or lessons, or classes, or much of anything that usually consumes the hours of each day.  Monday morning I took myself and my people to the local Walmart to buy my holiday puzzle.  I have had visions for weeks now about my Christmas break and popping in a bunch of Christmas movies while the children quietly play and I zone out with my 550 piece puzzle.

It is now Tuesday night and I have yet to open my puzzle box.  While we're not occupied with our usual activities, we are in party mode this week.  The kids and I have kept busy the last 2 days with cleaning up, and baking, and holiday preparations.  Or as I like to call it, the FUN stuff of Christmas.  Well, the cleaning part isn't that fun, but when I have plenty of time to do it, it isn't so bad. 

The party of this evening (and this post) was The Fox Brothers Family Christmas Party.  It is in capital letters, because that is it's official title (according to Abe).  Three of the nine Fox siblings live here in Utah and one family was visiting from Spokane.  These four brothers spent much of the evening talking politics, or more specifically, presidential candidates.  Has Abe found some competition for the "I Love Mitt the Most" award?

My sister-in-law, Mary, is missing from this picture as they arrived a little later.  The party wasn't originally planned for our house, but it worked out pretty well anyway.  Just a little tighter quarters.

Okay, maybe a lot tighter quarters.

Abe quite fell in love with his little niece, Sophie.  It was hard for him to hand her back over to Baden and Mary.  I think he was envisioning cutie little twins.

Or he might have agreed to a trade.  Seriously CUTE!

Abe's family does a gift exchange and each family gives to another family.  Philip and Katie gave to us this year.
JACKPOT!!!!!
You see, Katie (lower right in black) is super crafty and talented.  What am I saying?  That doesn't even begin to describe her.  Can I just say that she is everything I am not and can't even dream of being.  I am at peace with it, but I greatly admire her vision and artistry.  She gave homemade individual gifts to all of us.  ALL 8 OF US!

She gave all of us girls these adorable sweater bags.  On a fun note, everyone's bag matched the colors they were wearing.  Obviously, she picked the right colors.  I was ready for a new purse-- I'm so excited!

She gave Cannon 4 superhero capes made out of adult t-shirts.  The coolest thing I have ever seen.  And they are NO-SEW!  So, theoretically, even I could have made them!   But she did really impressive stencils on the back of each one-including a silver fox--which I really could not have done.  Cannon was so excited and is sleeping with the green one even as I write.

There were 19 kids at this gathering ranging in age from 1-13.  Free range playing was only going to be fun for so long, so we had a couple of activities planned to focus their energies for at least a few minutes. 
They seemed to enjoy stringing popcorn and my tree is looking very festive with the fruits of their labor.

They frosted gingerbread cookies.  At least I think some of the frosting went on the cookies.  I think a great deal was eaten straight as well.

It was most definitely not a quiet evening, but there were relatively few tears, no major injuries, and much laughing.  So I declare the Fox Brothers Family Christmas Party a success.