Make Your Own Ugly Christmas Sweater

Ugly Christmas sweater parties are so much fun this time of year, but have you seen the prices on those ugly sweaters?  I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay a high price for an ugly Christmas sweater that will probably only be worn once during what happens to be the most expensive month of the year.

When my daughter's youth group decided to wear ugly Christmas sweaters to the youth Christmas party I knew what I had to do!  Make one!  I'm really not sure who was more excited.  Bethany was super excited about the party and getting to wear an ugly sweater and I was super excited for the chance to make one.  I have had this idea for a while now, but never had a reason to make it!

Bethany actually found out that she was going to be able to go the party a day before the actual event.  She was originally supposed to work that evening, but plans changed.  We made a quick trip to Goodwill and Dollar General for supplies.

At Goodwill we found a men's green shirt.  We wanted something pretty large because I knew we would need something big for the hoop at the bottom.  For the hoop I used an old canopy I had.  You know the kind, the one's for a little girls bedroom covered with tulle.  Anyway, I sewed the hoop in using the sewing machine and we hot glued the rest of the items in place.  We had some gold garland and some ugly ornaments all purchased at Dollar General.  With the shirt costing $3.00 and the Garland and ornaments totaling $5.00 I was able to complete the whole project for under $10.00.

It turned out super ugly and she won first prize!

On our way there she had to ride in the back seat because the hoop was so big and and she was not able to put the shoulder seat belt on.  Don't worry, I was still parked when I took the pic!

We had to make a quick run into Walmart.  This picture may end up on the people of Walmart site.  I mean really..who goes shopping dressed like a tree?  But hey, if people can wear pajamas to Walmart...

We had five different people approach us and compliment her ugliness.  In fact several one person started by saying "you won"!  They were right!

Christmas Party Games

Every year my family and my sister's family comes together to decorate my mom's Christmas tree.  This has been a tradition of ours since the first year I moved away from home.  When our kids were little they loved it, but as they have gotten older their enthusiasm in it is not as great as it once was.  Last year we started a new tradition and turned the whole "Christmas Tree Trimming" night into a fun Christmas party and everyone loves it!!! We still have our usual party foods and decorate mam maw's tree, but now we have added fun Christmas games and end the night with Dirty Santa.  If you are not familiar with what Dirty Santa is, don't worry, it is nothing dirty.  Just a fun way to exchange Christmas gifts.  This does not take the place of the regular gifts we give to each other for Christmas, it's just an early fun gift giving game! 

Here are the games (and their descriptions) we played this year.

HUMDINGER

I love this game!  If you have ever played Cranium you know how much fun and laughter this game can bring.  A person hums and everyone else has to guess the song.  Of course for a Christmas party you need Christmas songs.  Here are the one's we used.  You can use your favorite holiday songs and make your own list!

Angels We Have Heard on High

Frosty the Snowman

Joy to the World

Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer

Baby It's Cold Outside

Deck the Halls

Go Tell It on the Mountain

I'll be Home for Christmas

Silent Night

Carol of the Bells

Jingle Bell Rock

Winter Wonderland

The First Noel

O Come all ye Faithful

We Wish you a Merry Christmas

Feliz Navidad

Hark the Harold Angels Sing

Away in the Manger

The 12 Days of Christmas

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Here Comes Santa Claus

Mary Did You Know

Do You Hear What I Hear

CHRISTMAS CATCHPHRASE

If you are familiar with Heads Up, the super fun tablet app, then you will know how to play this game.  A person has a phrase and has to try to get the players to guess the phrase by either acting it out or giving clues.  For example, if your phrase is Three Wise Men your clue could be:  "more than two really smart dudes".  Here is the list of phrases that we used.

Three Wise Men

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

The Grinch

Elf

Wrapping Presents

Caroling

Snow Angels

Mary and Joseph

Sleigh

Christmas Lights

Jingle Bells

Christmas Shopping

Little Drummer Boy

It's a Wonderful Life

Christmas with the Kranks

Frosty the Snowman

Ornaments

Partridge in a Pear Tree

Silver Bells

White Christmas

Gold, Myrrh and Frankincense

String Popcorn

CHRISTMAS ARTIST

See who is the most artistic in your family by giving them this fun drawing challenge.  I gave each person a sturdy piece of cardboard and a pen.  Each person then put the cardboard on top of their head and followed my directions.  

1.   Draw a line for the floor

2.  Draw a Christmas tree

3.  Add decorations

4.  Draw a star on top of the tree

5.  Draw a fireplace with a mantel next to the tree

6.  Draw a stocking hanging from the mantel

7.  Draw a present below the tree

Then we graded them

2 points if tree touches the floor

2 points if stocking is touching the mantel

1 point if star touches the tree

1 point if the star is above the tree

1 point for every ornament on the tree

1 point if your fireplace does not touch the tree because that would be a fire hazard. ;)

2 points if present is under the tree

There are several variations of this game as well and last year we played it a little differently.  We closed our eyes and did not do it on top of our head and we drew snowmen instead.  Just use your imagination!

HUMAN CHRISTMAS TREE

We got a lot of laughs out of this game.  We split up into two groups and each group was given a roll of green crepe paper, a package of red garland, candy canes, various colors of constructions paper, scissors and tape.  Each team had to choose one team member to be "the tree" and the other team members trimmed the tree!  Check out the pictures below to see how this turned out!

STOCKING SUPRISE

All you need for this one is a stocking and stocking stuffers.  After I put the objects in the stocking I pinned it closed and each person had to feel and try to guess what was in the stocking.  Here are the items I used, but you can use anything you have around the house.

ornament

coaster

pinecone

candy cane

jingle bell

pencil sharpener

spool of thread

yo-yo

Christmas bow

snowman figurine

bag of marbles

DIRTY SANTA

There are several variations of this game, but for our family we set a $5.00 price limit.  We all purchase and wrap our gift, but we do not include a name tag.  Then we put the gifts in the middle of the room and each person draws a number.  The first person picks a gift from the pile, the person with the second number can either pick a gift from the pile or take person #1's gift, and that goes on until every number has gone and we keep stealing until the last gift is finally chosen.   After that we go back to the person with number 1 and they open their gift and the person who purchased it lets them know it is from them....so forth and so on.  The only rules we have is that you cannot choose your own gift and you cannot have a tug of war with a gift. example - same two people taking back and forth from each other, you can however get the same gift back, but you can't take it back immediately.   I know some people choose to open the gifts and then steal them, but for our family we decided to wait until the end to open.  I have played it both ways and it is equally as fun!  

Here are a few pictures from our night of Christmas fun!

I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

A Gingerbread Tradition

Holiday Punch

I was going through some of my pictures the other day and ran across these of the punch I made last year for Christmas.  Since the holidays are right around the corner I thought I'd go ahead and share now.  

It is super, SUPER easy!  All you need is a jug of Apple Cider, a bottle of Ginger Ale, Cranberries, Oranges and a couple sprigs of Rosemary.

Mix the Apple Cider and Ginger Ale in your punch bowl and add cranberries, sliced oranges and rosemary as garnishment and to enhance flavor.  So yummy and so simple!  

Christmas Happenings

Been busy making sweet Christmas memories the last couple weeks with more to come this week.  So far it has included a trip Silver Dollar City.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year celebrating an old fashioned Christmas.  Our favorites to see is The Dicken's Christmas Carol, The Living Nativity and The Homestead Pickers.  There are so many lights throughout the town and the hot chocolate is dee-lish!  If you didn't have the Christmas spirit when you came you are sure to have it when you leave!

We had our 2'nd annual gingerbread house decorating day at my sisters.  Of course it's just us girls that participate in this since Dakota no longer has an interest in decorating gingerbread houses.  hehe!  He did join us after he got off work  and we all enjoyed a nice lunch together. :)

We also made Christmas cookies, have been watching lots of Christmas movies and wrapping presents.  We've been having our Advent devotions and we decided to open our "Jesus gift" this week.  We were all surprised at how much money was in our box and really enjoyed looking through the World Vision Catalog to pick out gifts to send.  We decided on a Bible translated in a child's language, vegetable seeds for 1 family, and a rabbit.  We decided that our Jesus gift is definitely a new family tradition!  This week will be filled with my "mom's only" homeschool Christmas party, cleaning, grocery shopping, baking, and finishing up school for Christmas break, and somewhere in there I've got to take my car to get looked at.  Then Saturday begins the family festivities!  Can't wait!  God is good and has been blessing us greatly!  Hope you all are enjoying the Holiday season as much as we are!