{"id":1767,"date":"2004-12-20T03:10:40","date_gmt":"2004-12-20T08:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2004-12-20T03:10:40","modified_gmt":"2004-12-20T08:10:40","slug":"ward-christmas-parties-bah-humbug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2004\/12\/ward-christmas-parties-bah-humbug\/","title":{"rendered":"Ward Christmas Parties … Bah, Humbug!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> does not sound like fun. Then again, that’s to be expected at the ward Christmas party.<\/p>\n

I enjoy most Church social functions, but I have an attitude about ward Christmas parties. In most wards I have attended, the Christmas party revolves around a meal, which is usually a pot luck, with perhaps some centrally prepared ham or other main dish. My pet peeve here: plastic plates and cutlery. This is pretty snobby, but I simply cannot pretend that I am having a nice meal when I am using plastic. So here is my standing offer to any ward activities committee: I will recruit some like-minded people in the ward and wash the dishes, if you will just avoid the plastic.<\/p>\n

Now for my Scrooge moment: I do not like the live nativity, even when my children have roles. These productions are not intended to be interesting … we all know how the story turns out. And they are (almost) never moving. They are often silly and disorganized. Does the Church Handbook of Instructions require this ritual?<\/p>\n

And, of course, the Santa issue: does Santa belong at a ward Christmas party? Perhaps Santa should be separate from the main activity, in the Relief Society room. After the closing prayer?<\/p>\n

Aside from visiting with ward members, the only aspect of the ward Christmas party that I enjoy (sometimes) is the singing of Christmas carols. In most instances, however, the cultural hall is chaotic by this point in the evening, and many people are talking and not singing.<\/p>\n

I hate to say this, but the only ward Christmas parties that have broken the mold for me are those we had in Oregon, where no children were invited (a fact that I found almost unbelievable when I first heard it) and the organizers insisted on preparing the food and serving it on china with metal cutlery. Those were fun parties, and we didn’t hesitate to invite our non-member friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This does not sound like fun. Then again, that’s to be expected at the ward Christmas party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}