this evening we had our christmas additional relief society meeting - a night in the bethlehem marketplace. what an excellent idea! the activities girls absolutely nailed it and it was such a good night!
we began the evening with a spiritual fireside in the chapel, complete with bible readings and musical items. i was asked to sing with my beautiful friend maddy - a song we had previously done together, thank goodness, we didn't have a great deal of time beforehand to practice! it's called "when mary sang her lullaby" by sally deford and you can find the music here. i love it so much, it's well worth the listen on youtube here if you don't already know it.
when the fireside aspect was finished, we moved into the hall for an evening in the marketplace, where bustling stalls were set up ready to receive their visitors. each person was required to pass through the census, having their name recorded, paying their tax (a can of food to be donated to charity) and receiving a bag of gold to use at the stalls to purchase food and goods.
the stalls were so cool, there was a jewellery store, with some funky finds from ebay
and handmade earrings i helped the girls make a few weeks back. i was glad to see they were a hit!
some bracelets and necklaces we found
and rings and hairclips
grandma was on hand to hold alex while i had some food and fruit from the food stalls
looked around at the nativity table - a lot of these were mine on loan as well... such an awesome idea - a great focal point and a way to ensure the focus of the evening remained about the birth of christ.
our marketplace for the evening ♥
the girls had asked me to make the desserts for the evening (much to my mother in laws annoyance... she told my friends not to ask me, but i was happy to do it. i love to be involved in these activities!), so i had been busy making most of them, but cheated and bought fruit mince pies. seriously, who has the time to make them when they are cheap as - and the cheap ones are actually good!
i made rocky road
brownies, fudge and cupcakes topped with a piece of turkish delight (trying hard to somehow tie it into the middle eastern theme there). yum!
everything looked and tasted amazing, i am so grateful as always for the amount of effort that goes into each and every one of these incredible activities!
our christmas tree for the evening - to the left was "bishops brew" which i unfortunately didn't get a photo of, oh was i cracking up over that one!
and in the middle of the room was the "women at the well" a gathering place to eat, sit and chat, while enjoying a quick massage on the house from one of our lovely relief society sisters who is well trained.
at the end of the night after pack up and finally dropping something off to oli, poor baby alex was completely exhausted. after a decent feed, which i had struggled to offer while at the chapel, he fell asleep on his grandma before i took him home to bed. i just love this picture, it shows how much our boy is loved ♥
what an amazing night. i am truly surrounded by amazing women in the gospel
**a huge apology and thank you to the wonderful bert ghergori who took the majority of these pictures. i was dying to capture some good shots of the evening, but spent most of the night racing between the dessert stall and my baby, so i have used his pics from our ward facebook page. thanks bertie! x**
what an amazing night. i am truly surrounded by amazing women in the gospel
**a huge apology and thank you to the wonderful bert ghergori who took the majority of these pictures. i was dying to capture some good shots of the evening, but spent most of the night racing between the dessert stall and my baby, so i have used his pics from our ward facebook page. thanks bertie! x**
