How the Grinch Stole Christmas

So a little after Tanner and I moved into my parents ward, the bishopric came over and met with us. One of the callings they gave us was to be in charge of the Ward Christmas Party. AH! That's all that went through my brain haha. They told us we could pick whatever theme we wanted.  They gave us a committee of 2 young men, 2 young women, and another couple in the ward. We were just the head peeps in charge.  I didn't start planning it really until November. We had a few meeting with our committee.  Well, as Tanner and I were brainstorming theme ideas, we all know how much Tanner and I LOVE the grinch. We watch it like 10 times a year and quote it 12 months out of the year haha. So....we brought the Grinch theme up to our committee and everyone loved it!

So....Grinch it was.

Here I was, trying to think where to even start to plan a fun party for 350 people...I think I watched the Grinch like 5 times before any ideas started coming to me.

Not going to lie I was a little overwhelmed hahaha I had never planned a party this huge before, and it had been YEARS since I'd been to a ward christmas party to even get any ideas flowing.

I started looking at ideas of decorations on Pinterest, and from my mom, etc.  I ended up getting ornaments at the dollar store that were super cute and cheap. Walmart had cheap rolls of tulle, and I got 30 tablecloths from the dollar store. I ended up finding a lady on facebook that would make me a 5 ft tall Grinch! as tall as me! :)

Tanner and I came up with a theme that we thought was perfect:

I got an adorable sign that said that off of Amazon that we hung up.

I also made some blocks that I thought were so cute! They took forever but were worth it!

I was given quite the tight budget, so finding decorations, and food, and silverware, etc was tough! but we did it :)

Sadly. our committee wasn't very helpful which made it even more stressful for me. But...we did it anyway and we think it turned out to be pretty fun!

Here's some pictures of everything after we set it all up. Tanner and I had our friends set the tables and decorations up with us :)

                                                 We set up 30 tables, and 325 chairs.

We had fun games set up for little kids like Pin the Heart on Mr. Grinch, and coloring pages.

                                        We also put up a photo booth! The adults loved that.

There was SO much more set up, but I got so busy that I forgot to get pics of everything. The best part and Im STILL mad at myself for not getting a picture, was the entry way. I LOVED IT!!!!

I had a square table set up by the door, with adorable green and red light up presents, with my GRINCH blocks, grinch trees that I made as well, and a drawing of Mr. Grinch poking his head through the door. oh it was so cute! I didn't get a picture but you can picture it in your head :)

We also got really lucky on the food part! We bought 10 hams, and had people sign up to bring 10 each of who hash, who pudding, grinch greens, and rare who roast beast! It turned out perfect, and we had ham left over!!!! woohoo!!! The bishopric told us that every year they've run out of food. So we were proud of ourselves hahaha. We also had a ugly sweater contest- that was a hit!! Adults went all out on that and loved it!  I asked a family in our ward to do the entertainment, and they also did a wonderful job! they were so funny and had everyone laughing!

Overall, Tanner and I had a lot of fun. It was super overwhelming for me, and being 21 weeks pregnant didn't help at all. I was on my feet from 8 in the morning, until 11 at night. With a 20 minute lunch break.  Let's just say when I got home, I took a looooong bath. My hip ended up going out, and m muscles were so sore! But- it was fun and worth it!


*Things I didn't do that I wish I would've:

-make sure you have a committee that is willing to help you with such a huge responsibility! We didn't really have this, and it made it 10 times harder.
-start planning a party this huge more than a month in advance!
-Asked more people in the ward to help me with set up, take down, serving, etc.
-Made Tanner help me more :)

*Things I did do to remember for next time
-delegate!! I ended up delegating a lot of responsibility towards the end. It helped me a ton!
- I can do hard things!!!
-be creative!

Overall, it was a great learning experience for me. looking back, I still can't believe I pulled off something that big and did a good job at it!!

Until next time...
hopefully not :)