Bookclub Christmas--Best Gathering of the Year

We gathered at Collette's house last Friday night to celebrate Christmas together. It's been a rough year for book club gatherings because we've all gotten so busy it's hard to be together at the same time each month. This year we moved our gatherings to the 2nd Friday night of each month, which helped immensely with the late nights for Collette and I since we have to get out the door for work in the mornings and because there are less conflicts with kids' sports/church activities. But we still ran into conflicts with vacations and busyness.

This was the first time we'd all been together in several months!

Collette had the table set beautifully and a scrumptious roast cooked.

Jenn brought salad, Jana brought rolls, Amy brought baked potatoes, I brought the sparkling grape juice, and Michelle was on dessert.

This is the view from the kitchen looking into "the book club room". Usually the blue lounge chair is not there, but it is left over from Collette's husband Travis' recent kidney and pancreas transplant!! It is such a miracle that he is no longer diabetic and that he is healthy and well, this felt like a milestone for book club too!

As Jana was sitting there looking at her feet she realized she had mismatched, fuzzy red socks on.

Michelle made this fabulous oatmeal, butterscotch cookie pie thing with a caramel sauce. We devoured it of course!

We continued our traditional book exchange, isn't this book mark made by Collette cute?

  Michelle got her book from Collette.

Collette got a book from Amy.

Amy got a book from me.

Jenn got a book from Jana.

Jana got her book from Michelle.

I got 2 books from Jenn! She knows I hate paying for church-type books so she got me this Emily Freeman book and then also The Lover's Dictionary which is on my to-read list but I didn't remember putting it there but I'm thrilled to get it.

The whole book is done like this with a different work heading on each page and talks about love.

These are the unwrapped books we gave/got.

Then it was on to gifts! I ended up giving the girls this draft paper Christmas print that I got from Pinterest. I really struggled to come up with something this year, but I love this.

It was a bountiful harvest! Amy made us paper poinsettia decorations, Jana gave us a substantial roll of wrapping paper, Collette gave us an autographed book and Cadbury eggs, Michelle gave us a cute tin with candy canes and a decorative frame, and then Jenn was the big finale with the suitcases full of treat goodness AND the black wood Christmas tree decoration. We're spoiled for sure.