Oh What Fun!

We have had a fun week. It seems like sometimes we go for weeks without a lot of social activities and then we do a whole bunch of stuff right together.This was one of those weeks with a whole bunch of FUN things to do.

On Tuesday night we hosted our group of young professionals for a Christmas party. Pre-covid our group was so much bigger. We are down to 6-8 young adults each week plus Mark and me BUT we still had fun.

We had party food and while we were eating we discussed how good party food tastes! I actually bought several things from Costco - frozen pigs in a blanket; meatballs (I made a sauce), meat and cheese for a charcuterie board, and pimento cheese and crackers. 

Above is a picture of our sweet group.

Mark and I ended up with great presents from our Dirty Santa game.

I know we are going to take at least 3 weeks off from our Tuesday nigth group because my class starts at the end of the first week of January and I'm not even sure what day the class meets. It is an online Sociology class.

On Wednesday, we had our office party. I didn't take any pictures at lunch but I did take pictures at our activity! We went to Civil Axe and we played hard and we had fun! We also spent a lot of time on Wednesday making our staff video which will debut on Sunday. We make a fun video every year as a promo for our Manger Offering which supports 22 ministry partners plus this year is going to help with a home building effort in our city.

We had to sign a waiver first and get a little introduction to axe throwing.

We threw a two handed axe and we threw a one handed ax. Mark said the one handed one looks like a hatchet to him (in my photos).

Several people in our group were really good! Marie did quite well.

That is Brian (my boss and our senior pastor) in the photo below.

Laura was quite good also!

I threw and threw and threw and my axe would bounce off the board but finally I got one to stick in the dead center! I look positively wild eyed in this photo!!

Our children's staff competed against our youth staff and our children's staff won. Eleanor and Susan were great axe throwers.

On Wednesday night we had tickets to see Christmas Vacation at the Alabama Theater. I remember going to this theater as a child.

We got in line with a whole bunch of other people and we were "wanded" before we were allowed to enter.

While we were waiting in line, we could look at the cute decorations in the window. When I was a little kid, the downtown stores would all decorate their windows and it was a big deal. I remember going to see all of the decorations with out neighbors one year.

This is the massive tree that is in the lobby of the theater.

I've told y'all before - we take horrible selfies. The show was sold out. We looked while waiting and it says the theater holds 2500 but I think the MC said there were 1500-2000 there on Wednesday night. I ended up wearing a mask during the show simply because there were so many people there.

This photo is dark but you can see the cool details - the mezzanine seats are around the edge and then there is balcony seating above. The theater was built by Paramount Studios in 1927.

I'm so sorry that the photo below is such a poor photo. One of the special things at the Alabama Theater is the Mighty Wurlitzer organ that rises from below stage. The organist was dressed in a bathrobe like Cousin Eddie in the movie. He played several Christmas songs and all of those people sang. We also watched a Goofy Christmas cartoon that was quite cute. 

They invited the people in the audience who dressed like the characters in Christmas Vacation to come to the front and they lined them up on the stage. I didn't get a picture but one guy looked just like Chevy Chase.

On Thursday night, we were invited to meet some friends at a local restaurant. I think I've written about this before but our Sunday School class does a really cool thing. We have "out to eat" supper clubs that rotate every quarter. You have a "dinner captain" for each month whose job is to figure out what night works for everyone (or most everyone) in that group. The "dinner captain" is responsible for picking a restaurant, calling ahead to make reservations if needed, email/text the ones in the group with the details. Our group wasn't meeting in December but another group was meeting and they included us. We ate at Little Donkey and I had a great frozen margarita.

This has been a fun week. The first case of Omicron has been diagnosed in Alabama and that person hasn't traveled which means that Omicron was already here. I hope we can make it through Christmas and go to Christmas Eve communion and gather as a family. Once our governor opened the state back up and removed the mask mandates, she said she had no plans of closing us down again. I wonder if we are in for an interesting winter.

Have you done anything fun this week?