Our women’s ministry group got together this weekend for a wonderful time of celebrating. We ordered in a little Swiss Chalet, did an ornament craft together, and enjoyed some sweet Christmas desserts. We went with a snowflake theme this year.

The main tables were decorated with simple twig centre pieces. I spray painted some sticks with silver spray paint -I do love a little spray paint! Then we put them into vases with some “snow” and decorated with some snowflake and silver ornaments.

I also decorated the tables with lots of candles, and these sweet mason jar snow globes.

We had fun making a simple ornament before dinner, and then we had take-out Swiss Chalet chicken, it was simple and everyone enjoyed it. We had a simple white cranberry juice punch, along with bottled water, coffee and tea.

I really liked how the snowflake lights looked on the drink table, such a simple way to add a little Christmas sparkle.

This table was waiting for the chicken to arrive.

After dinner there was a beautiful dessert table, with some traditional Christmas treats, and snowflake themed treats too.

I made these vanilla cupcakes, decorated with some simple snowflake sprinkles.

I used these sweet little snowflake place card holders to hold our dessert labels. We also had tiramisu in individual cups, and several kinds of delicious Christmas squares.

My friend Heather made these gorgeous snowflake sugar cookies.

And, she also made these cute little mini cheesecakes. She made the decorations with melted chocolate wafers piped into designs, and then placed on the cheesecakes after they hardened. I love the “w” and “m” for “Women’s Ministries” -love is in the details.

We had a wonderful evening together, celebrating the true meaning of Christmas, light shining in the darkness. I hope you having the blessing of amazing, encouraging, fun women in your life, and an opportunity to get together this Christmas and celebrate, because sometimes life really is a party!

This post is linked up at Between Naps on the Porch, and Tatertots and Jello.

We’ve been having fun working through our Activity Advent Calendar, see how we made it here. Yesterday’s activity was:

So, we had sausage, veggies and dip, chips, fruit, and chocolate trifle in a mason jar under the Christmas tree!

Everyone’s favourite was the Chocolate Trifle, see the recipe here, and it was made all the sweeter in a little individual mason jar.

Sometimes, life really is a party! Merry Christmas.

This post is linked up at Tatertots and Jello.

I want to introduce you to one of my best friends, and crafting buddies, Connie, who is serving God’s people in Kenya. You can check out all her adventures at her blog www.tellinghisstories.blogspot.com I was skyping her recently and she showed me all the amazing stuff she’d crafted for Christmas and I asked her if she’d be willing to share with us, so here’s how a good Canadian girl brings a little snow to Kenya!

Hey fellow ‘Life Is a Party’ blog lovers. My name is Connie, I’m a friend of Dannyelle’s and I live in Nairobi, Kenya. I recently made my own Christmas decorations because, as you might imagine, Christmas décor is expensive and hard to come by in Nairobi. Decorating your home for the holidays is slowly catching on here but I decided to keep it cheap by making my own.

One thing I will really miss about Christmas is snow. I’m from Ontario, Canada and I always associate Christmas with winter so when I walk outside and every day looks like summer, it’s a bit difficult to get into the Christmas spirit. I decided to do what I could to remind myself that Christmas is just around the corner by playing Christmas music and creating a snowflake wall.

These were super easy. I just used some paper I had, followed the directions on this website and started hacking away. I really like that they are all different shapes and sizes. I just used a bit of tape, attached them to sting in rows and hung them on the wall. The only paper I had was a bit thicker than printer paper. If you have something thinner, I would suggest using that. It’s easier to cut, making it easier on the hands and ensures that your snowflakes are symmetrical

Another thing I wanted was a Christmas tree. You can only find fake ones here and again, they are expensive. I thought that I could go a different route than the typical green type so that I could use my tree all year round and just switch up the decorations.

I collected some branches from the road (which my neighbours thought was very humorous) and cemented them into an empty margarine container. I bought 1 kg of cement at roughly 30 cents. I’m not sure the quantity options where you are from but it’s not hard to find at any hardware store. I then filled half of my flower pot with stones and set my cemented branches on top. I covered the container and stones with crepe paper. Moss, tissue paper or shredded paper are some other ideas for covering the bottom of your tree.

Next were the decorations. I wanted a star on top so I found some instructions here, and made my star and then sprayed it with silver paint.

I also made some origami cranes found on this website out of the same type of paper as the snowflakes and the star. I attached thread so that I could hang them on my tree. I also sprayed them in silver.

I had some little plastic animals that I thought would look cute on the tree but they were a little too colourful for me so I again, attacked them with silver paint to tone them down a bit. I tied some string around them as well so they could hang.

Finally, I found some instructions for some cool looking paper wreaths on www.pinterest.com. I made them out of newspaper and pages from an old phone book. Again, I attached some string so they would hang. The instructions can be found here.

I found some small bulbs and some lights at a store called Nakumatt. It is similar to Walmart. Other than the cement and crepe paper, they are the only things I bought for my tree. Once I put them all on, I lit it up and started planning a Christmas party. I can’t wait for my friends to enjoy it with me.

Thanks so much for sharing with us Connie, glad to see you’re using your MacGyver craft skills to make life a party in Nairobi! Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up at Tatertots and Jello.