All Things Christmas: Relief Society Workshop

On Saturday just gone, I had the pleasure of conducting my last Relief Society activity. I've been released as 2nd Counselor as I'm moving on to Sunday School, teacher development. Now I'm sad to say goodbye to Relief Society but by the same token I'm really excited to lead the Teach My Gospel course. It's content I'm familiar with from my previous ward where I taught the same course there. I know this course can really make a difference to the teachers and strengthen the ward from its ripple effect. But really I'm just happy to serve wherever I'm needed.

Anyway, I think I finished on a good note, well I had a jolly fine time anyway. And I've had some emails from some of the sisters saying how much they enjoyed our workshop, so yeah, I guess it was good. God is good. Where would I be without the gospel, I don't like to imagine.

Anyway, here are lots of photos from our workshop, the Relief Society room looked a real treat, these photos don't do it justice. Thanks Janferay for helping to set up and for picking up when I ran out of steam.

Thanks Justine for putting up with me fussing and cooking, and cooking and fussing and for not throwing away any of my endless lists and I mean like untold lists, great numbers of lists. I mean the programme list, the breakdown of programme plans, list of things to cook, list of things to make, plan of when to do it, plan of shopping trips, lists of deadlines for completing tasks, lists of ingredients required, list of stores to visit for shopping, lists of craft supplies to assemble, lists of decorations to take, lists of assignments to be given and so on and so on. I just get to the point where if its not on a list I couldn't possibly remember it.

I won't really miss all that list making, but I do swear by the old adage, plan the work and work the plan. Anyway..................

All the goodies on display, click for a better view

The sisters are enthralled

Below is Janferay telling us how she makes Sand Art brownies, layering all the ingredients in a jar just like sand art and adding a label along the lines of add an egg, so much oil and milk, then bake and enjoy

At this workshop the sisters made little nativity sets from terra cotta pots and other stuff, there's a closer view of them on the table in the first pic above. There was also a fancy waterfall card making workshop, and compulsory taste testing from the sweet treats gift basket.



We talked about starting family traditions with advent calendars, filling the pockets with scriptural references of the Saviour's birth, or a treat for that member of the family who had done a good deed. We talked about creating an advent calendar that goes with your missionary out into the field and gets handed down to all the family members to take on their mission, creating bonds of love for family and missionary work. We had a few examples of specially made calendars including this beautiful one here. The one on the right is a 'kitset' ready for sewing.

The Primary board set this elegant Christmas table, check out the pretty mauve favours. I'm going to make some of them for our Christmas table

A totally different approach to a christmas table, this one has little framed photos for place settings and Santa's Polar Express chugging around the track for a table centrepiece

Then there were the gifts from the kitchen, starting with good old Chocky
Fudge sauce

Easy peasy chutney

Green cucumbers and red peppers in this pretty Christmas pickle, at the rate we're eating it in our house we'll be lucky if there's any left by Christmas.

Old Fashioned Lemonade

Never fail uncooked Coconut Ice
Every Christmas basket needs truffles
And these pretty mints which look better than they taste but that's only because I accidently put garden mint essence instead of peppermint essence into them, lol
And so it was, a really busy, fun, busy workshop.

Unexpected side effect: our Christmas decorations are up at home even though its not officially the Christmas month yet because when I got home with everything, it didn't make sense to pack them all away only to have to get them out in a couple of weeks time, so I decorated the house, early, very early for us, but good.

Other unexpected side effect: We have Christmas gifts all prepared and decorated for our Visiting Teaching assignments for December. Early, but good, will definitely take the pressure off what's shaping up to be a very busy December