Ornament & Cookie Exchange

Since we have been in Germany, I've been trying to help organize "social events" to help get everyone together.  We started doing a potluck once a month, and a Ladies' Bible Study every other week.  When we were in Lubbock, the ladies got together every year at Christmas time to do an ornament exchange.  I LoVeD this tradition!  If you know me, you know how much I'm in love with Christmas!!!  And how much I LOVE to decorate the tree!  This was right up my alley :)  I thought this would be a good tradition to start with the ladies here.  My friend Amanda had the idea to combine it with a cookie exchange.  So this past Saturday, we had the 1st Annual Ladies' Ornament & Cookie Exchange!  It was great.  Amanda was gracious enough to let us do it at her place again.  Amanda set the table and used her wedding china!  It was very fancy and SO beautiful!

The Exchange was at 10:00; brunch!  We had a chicken ring, breakfast casserole, pumpkin-cranberry muffins, apples with fruit dip, and cinnamon-mocha cupcakes!  Yummy!!!

Cinnamon-mocha cupcakes.  I was pretty proud of them!  They were delicious and oh so cute!

Everyone came with a wrapped ornament, and 2 dozen cookies!

To trade ornaments, we read a right/left story of The Night Before Christmas.  It was really cute.  Everytime she said right, we passed to the right.  When she said left...  You get it.  At the end of the story, the gift in your hands is the one you open.  ALL of the ornaments were really cute.  I love the ones I ended up with!  And yes I said the "ones", because mine had 2!!!  Bonus!  I got a wooden snowman!!!!!  And a pickle!  Haha.  It's a german tradition.  Ma-maw started doing it a couple of years ago.  They are both on my tree, and someone already found the pickle.  hehe.  But I didn't have a prize for him...

All in all, I would say the Ornament & Cookie Exchange was a success!  We had a lot of fun together.  We ended up sitting around the table talking and laughing for several hours!  What a great tradition!!!  I can't wait until next year!