Let the Celebrations Begin

Party week for the Shaffers is in full swing! Thought I'd let you peek into the last couple of evenings we've enjoyed!

Earlier this year, I read a book called Next Door as it is in Heaven, and it has really changed the way I view neighborhoods. {In a good way!} The book talked a lot about how "back in the day," neighbors knew each other and did life together, because you did ALL of life from your neighborhood. People lived and worked and shopped and went to church and had friendship circles right in their geographical circles. Now we spread our life over a much wider range, and after reading that book, I began to crave the old way of doing things.

That's why I think it is so cool that my parents actually have the "olden days" kind of neighborhood. They know their neighbors and they do life together all the time. They watch out for each other and pitch in to help and share together, everything from extra garden spoils to evenings around a fire pit roasting marshmallows.

So in this season when it seems like many people cram their annual socializing with everyone into one week, this neighborhood got together for a Christmas party - but for them, it's not an annual meeting. It's just a special gathering of a life that happens all the time.

They take turns hosting the party, and this year was Mom and Dad's turn. And a couple of weeks ago, Mom asked if Ryan and I could come and bring our photo booth props for something new and different. Rarely known to turn down food in exchange for anything, we happily packed up our photo booth stuff and drove to Mom and Dad's to be part of the celebration.

You guys, it was so. much. fun. Everyone pitched in with food, and we pulled up chairs around a table to eat salad, my aunt's best-ever-on-the-planet homemade lasagna, and breadsticks from Fazoli's. {Yours truly picked those up on the way over and had to carry TWO DOZEN BREADSTICKS WITHOUT EATING THEM. Slow forms of torture.}

Pie, cookies, and coffee made up dessert, and then we played Christmas games and took turns at the photo booth. And then everyone just sat around in a huge circle and they told story after story after story, each one feeding off the story before, and we laughed until we cried.

That's how celebrations should be. People stayed late - we didn't get home until about 11:30 - and I don't think most of them wanted to go home then. It was just sort of socially expected.

I saw notes on Facebook of how much fun they all had and how much they all loved each other, and it warmed my heart. I love it that this bunch is proof that a neighborhood can be a neighborhood that works. Not just a bunch of people living next door to each other.

Here are a few peeks into the photo booth. They were fun!

And then last night, the celebrations continued, because yesterday was Ryan's mom's birthday! A group of us got together to celebrate with her at Bob Evans, and it was a fun night!

{This is what happens when my dinner time is delayed. My stomach can't tell the difference between 15 minutes late and 2 hours late. HA! I had downed 2 cups of coffee by the time food arrived, and then apparently there was the fear that I would hoard EVERYONE'S food.}

{No. I did not eat all that.}

While we waited for our food, Nita opened her gifts and had fun with her treasures.

{Ryan and I gave her a calendar that I'd made using pictures of her family and pictures she had taken. I think she liked it!}

And of course, photo opps!!

I think we scared our poor waitress half to death, but she did a good job, and we had a great night together.

Happy birthday {again}, Nita! We love you!! :)