A full and festive weekend

This is going to be another jam packed, picture filled post, so get ready.  I'm not going to be too incredibly wordy though, so you can (mostly) just scroll and enjoy.  

I worked on Friday.  It was my last day of work until January 7th.  It was also the first week in more than a month (the week before Thanksgiving) that I did my regular Thursday/Friday schedule and didn't work a Monday instead of one of those days.

Our school hired a Santa to come and deliver presents. He gave a gift to every single kid at the school.  I had a long chat with him during one of his breaks.  His real name is Nicholas.  He was interesting.  I'll give you details if you want them, but privately.

There were gift bags all over the library. 

I got my bulletin board ready to go with all the new calendars for when I return.  January 2016.  Wow. 

As soon as I got home we drove to a car dealership to see Santa.  We started going here to see Santa in 2013 after we got fed up with Bass Pro Shop and their 3+ hour long waits.  We'll never go anywhere else (assuming Santa is here and available every year).

We had the same Santa for two years in a row, in 2013 and 2014.  This Santa was new.  He was no where near as good and authentic as the other guy, but he was free and there was no wait.  That's all that matters.

On Saturday I joined my sisterhood ladies group for our end of the year spectacular.

We met at Lauren's house for snacking and day drinking and a zero dollar white elephant gift exchange. 

Some of us (ME!) wore our pajamas for the day portion of our party.

Cynthia was a jammie wearer also.

Brenda selected and opened this gift from Lauren, but after Lauren stole my gift I stole this from Brenda.  It's a tissue box cover.

The evening portion of our get-together was a night at the Phoenix Botanical Gardens.  We go every year.  Lauren got us light up necklaces this year.

We went to the first musical group, Simply Three.  

Maryellen, Cynthia and I went to the bar to get a drink so that our day drinking could continue into night drinking.  That's when we found out we could buy a whole bottle of wine.  So we did.  And then we did an entire photo shoot with it.  

The bell players were next.  Maryellen said that I will be the lady in the back row on the end.  I can't wait!

A little smooth jazz by the fireplace.

Then our annual bonding and dancing in the hut.  One of these years we're going to get escorted off the grounds for being a public nuisance.

Last show of the night: the gypsies, who we always refer to as pirates.

They came and danced with us.

Lauren got to sit next to some hipsters who were on a date.

And then we took our picture with the pirates.

This guy really liked Shireen.

A little wonderful light display on our way out.  Those are all stacked plastic bottles.

On Sunday we were invited to a cookie making, baking and decorating party at Monica and Rick's house.  This is their front yard.

I made an emergency trip to Michael's Arts and Crafts for Elliott's apron.

The stuff on it were iron on patches.

It was total cookie mania!

Not even half of what we ended up with!

I made the cookie press cookie dough and Brendan operated it.  We were a cookie making team.

These were a favorite.  Every time I moved more completed cookies into the dining room there were more missing.

I can't remember this kid's name, but he and Elliott could have been brothers.

There was a lot of football watching among the men folk.

This isn't even all of them.  There were probably two dozen more in the kitchen.

Monica's at the end.  You can just barely see her.

Elliott did that tree in the middle and the giraffe to the left.  He's sprinkle happy.

It was a busy and really fun weekend.