The Hall Almost Annual Adult Christmas Party

We spent the first week of December getting the house cleaned and decorated for our annual (almost) Christmas party.  We so love having our friends join us to celebrate the season.  Though it is mostly centered on fun and food (and of course, the white elephant exchange), it is still one of the ways we share things we love with our friends and neighbors at this special season of the year. Historically over the 34 years of our marriage, we first had a party either at Christmas or New Years Eve.  We didn't have a set pattern.  Then when we lived in Hong Kong, our friends the Bradfords, included us in their annual Christmas party (great memories!) each of the first years we were there.  After they left for Malaysia, we took over that party and have been doing a Christmas party since then.  We have missed a couple of years due to sickness but that has been very rare.  I assume that we will do it until we die.  The problem is that we don't keep track of who we invite and what we do from year to year.  I am sure it might get boring for some people.  This year we did take a couple of pictures which we have never down before.

Wives adding a face, buttons and nose behind their backs
with husbands giving directions
(in front--Amy and Newt McNeill

Games playing with Jena looking on in the back

Yes, Andersons--that is the lizard you brought to
our Christmas party in Hong Kong in 1990 (I think).
It has traveled around in HK, Texas, and now in Syracuse.
If you "get" the lizard, you get a guarenteed invitation to
the Christmas party the following year (not sure if that is
a punishment or a reward.)  My kids claimed they haven't
ever seen the lizard so now they can see it.

It was a fun party with crazy games and white elephant exchange rules which Gary makes up and changes every year.  You never know how and what may happen during that game.  We made a Christmas version of Teletrations which was fun.