Dirty Santa

A few years ago Benay and I began to have a Christmas party in our house. We found it to be a great way to end the year with people who had studied the Bible with us during the year and people in the house church that meets in our house. It is also a great way to invite new people to begin to get to know Jesus through friendships with our already Christian family.

We had another party in December. When we first began to have the party we explained to everyone that it would be a Dirty Santa party. They looked at us like we were from Mars. So we had to explain the rules of Dirty Santa (you might know it as White Elephant or Dirty Christmas).

The Brasilians jumped right on it and they always have a great time with it.

If you know how to play it, you know how much fun it is because sometimes people end up with what they want (like a coffee mug from the World's Greatest Soccer team)....................and sometimes they don't (like a grown man getting a baby doll......courtesy of my designated present chooser Carys). But the good thing about the game is that you can usually find a way to get rid of something............and no matter what, you have fun.

And sometimes people take the stage for a little dance time. On her first day here my mom asked if Anderson's battery ever runs down. We told her no. He wakes up and goes hard all day (he is an extreme extrovert and big time conversationalist), and then tells you he's ready for bed and he'll be out about 30 seconds after his head hits the pillow. He normally goes to bed between 8-9. This video shows what a lot of extra people can do to an extrovert a couple of hours after his bedtime. In the video you can hear the Brasilians calling him a "sambista" which means someone who dances the samba (a typical Brasilian dance).

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

We were even blessed with a big fireworks show that someone had in our neighborhood. Yes, that is our lit up palm tree in our front yard on the left and our little welcome Santa on the right. That is as wide as our front yard gets. We always have a great time as we enjoy food, fun and fellowship. This year we had 6 people participate who haven't yet given their lives to Christ. I love how God can use a party game like "Dirty Santa" to begin to share his love to those who don't know Him.