Will Santa Come to a Cardboard Fireplace?

I was still tired from the trip to Baguio, but we had another party to get ready for—the Youth Christmas party for our congregation. The Young Women Presidency divided up the responsibilities. Lady Hiva was in charge of decorations and desserts so we set to work creating! She made the desserts, I started on the decorations.

Lady Hiva had it all planned out that she wanted a “Winter Scene” including a fireplace, it was my job to take that idea and make it happen. The fireplace was first. With lots of packing tape and a few boxes, I was able to put something together. It was fun to make. We took one of our garlands from home to decorated it and Lady Hiva downloaded a “crackling fire” noise the increase the authenticity—haha! I think it is the only fireplace around that has the air conditioner on in the same room! I wonder if Santa will come visit the house if we have a cardboard fireplace?

We made a snowy winter scene and large snowflakes out of paper cutouts from the Cricut (one of the most used pieces of equipment in our house) and a tree out of tinsel. It all looked really good when we were done. (Yes, I may be a bit bias)

Hiva made Oreo truffles, thanks to the Relief Society of the BYU-Hawaii 14^th ward cooking classes and a large marbled cake. Both were really popular with the party guests!

The best part of the experience was spending time with the youth. They are so excited to enjoy every little thing that we do. Lady Hiva had planned several games for them that included a scavenger hunt with clues from the St. Luke Chapter 2 version of the Christmas Story and a gift exchange. It was fun to watch them run from one place to another trying to answer questions out of the Bible.

The very last thing we did was the game for exchanging gifts where the group sits in a circle and they listen to a story about the “Wright” family and whenever they hear the word “Right” they hand the box right; or “Left”, they hand the box left. In English it is really fun because there is so many uses for “left”: ‘Turn left’ ‘I left my purse’ etc. And with “Right” you have ‘Wright,’ ‘write,’ ‘right’ as in turn, and ‘right’ as in correct. Here were all of these youth laughing hysterically because English is not their first language and it was extra chaotic! At one point someone would have no gifts and another person would have three…

This a the hardest clue...they are all just hoping someone else will come up with the answer

He REALLY wanted that gift, but I guess the "Wright" story was not Right for him!

Was that right or left? Kaliwa or Kanan

It was a fun evening, always a nice experience to spend time among friends.