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| Our big fat Christmas dinner was held at one of the community rooms at 105 Gibson |
Our family has been holding our annual Christmas dinner for the past four decades. It is a great tradition and we all look forward to this gathering, especially our 92 year old mother.
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| Baby T. with her grandma! |
Over the past four decades, our family has grown from a family of nine to close to forty people.
Though many of our grown children are studying or working outside of Toronto, they make a real effort getting to this annual family get together.
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| Little baby L.'s very first Christmas! |
Every year, this family dinner has been held in someone's home as we take turn to organize and host this gathering.
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| Little baby T.'s very first Christmas too! |
However, our family has grown to a size that is no longer can be held comfortably in many of our humble abodes.
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| The L.'s and S. ( S. and D. drove from Ottawa to the family dinner |
This year, our big fat family Christmas dinner was held in a community room at the 105 Gibson Centre.
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| D., M. and her baby girl. |
Since it was my turn to organize and host the party, I made the arrangement to contact the 105 Gibson Centre staff, to rent the room and buy the event insurance.
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| S. and M. drove from Kitchener for our Christmas family dinner |
Though Meals In Need located in 105 Gibson Centre does offer catering service to special events, our family opted for a potluck dinner instead.
There were a lot of delicious food brought to the party!
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| Every family brought a different dish to our potluck Christmas dinner |
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| S. and his dad at our dinner held at 105 Gibson Centre |
Besides organizing a delicious Christmas feast, I wanted to make sure there would be songs and games at the party. Therefore, I started planning this family event almost a month and half ago, getting everything ready and packing all the Christmas decorations, candles needed to turn this community classroom into a festive Christmas party room.
It was pretty exciting on the day of our family Christmas dinner! We picked up our son, E.who took the red eye flight from the States to make it in time for this party.
After dropping him off at home to catch some sleep, we loaded up our car with all the things we needed and went to Gibson Centre to get ready.
This was to be a dinner for 43 people all together!
We were grateful that staff from 105 Gibson was there to help us - the table clothes we rented were already on the tables and the microphone was set up.
I just had to tell them how we wanted the tables and the staff assisted us in getting them all placed according to our room arrangement plan.
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| The kids enjoyed the food and the family party |
Shortly after 4pm, some of the family members started arriving and they too gave us a hand getting ready.
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| Baby H. and his great grandma and family. |
We had eight long tables arranged in a U shape in the centre of the room, three long tables against one side of the wall for all the potluck dishes, one table for drinks placed in the middle of the room and another table in a corner for desserts.
The room looked pretty nice after we lit the candles on the tables with all the flowers and decorations.
It made me very happy to see that our extended family and their relatives could get together at least once a year, have a good time and catch up with each other.
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| Tre. opening his gift from his Secret Santa |
To minimize gift buying for the families, we played the Secret Santa game for the little ones.
I drew the kids' names randomly and sent their names to each Secret Santa who would only buy for that kid.
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| Family and guests had fun guessing the weight of the fruit basket |
We also had a couple of games for the adults.
One of them was the fruit basket weight guessing game. I wrapped a basket of fresh fruits, candies and treats in a basket and asked each guest to write down his/ her guess for the total weight.
Monica had it right on the spot at the beginning but later changed it. Bill, one of our guests ended up with the closest guess and won the basket
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| E. tried to unwrap the gift with mitts on while Little H. rolled the dice |
I wrapped two gift cards in many layers of wrapping paper at home.
( I was watching some Christmas TV shows the night before and wrapped the gift for at least 2 hours!)
Wearing a pair of mitts, each participant tried to tear open the gift wraps while another person rolled the 2 dice together. When the two dice added up to number 7, then another person would have a turn at opening the wrapped gift. The person who completely removed the last layer of wrapping paper would win the gift.
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| The little kids like this gift opening game as well! |
When I was preparing this game, I intended it for the older cousins and adults.
I was pleasantly surprised that little 4 year old Ha and Ba. also like this game. They stood at the table wanting to participate; Ha. was so into it that she ended up becoming our dice thrower. Good job, Ha.!
(I have to remember how much the little kids like this game.)
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| Our guests had a good time at our family party too! |
We were able to invite some guests to share our family gathering and their kids really had a great time at our family party.
This was what warmed my heart - sharing the blessings of God with other people other than our family members! This is the Christmas spirit and that's the least we can do in this season marked by love and giving!
R.T.
Our Big Fat Family Christmas Party
105 Gibson Centre
105 Gibson Drive, Markham
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