Part II

Yes that is a Christmas tree you see. One of the things we did this year was have
a theme for each day. Our 1st day was Canada Day, the 2nd was Saint Patrick's Day and the 3rd was Christmas. Even though we were all melting in our undies, we had the Christmas carols playing the decorations up and of course the tree. The tree was decorated with packets of snowman soup and the gifts underneath was the last of the pixie pal gifts. Each girl would come up and take a snowman soup packet and take their pixie pal gift and reveal their pixie pal gift by giving it to them. It was really sweet to see the surprises on the girls' faces as they found out who their pixie pal were. I love pixie pals. It is one of the things I enjoy taking my girls out and find gifts that we think our person will like. I always buy extra in case some of the girls forget theirs or the new girls didn't know about it. It's always interesting to see what happens when it comes to the gift exchange. Of course what's Christmas without some elves and Father Christmas. When we plan something we go big or go home. I feel even though it may do some damage to my reputation, I'm willing to take one for the team. That's Pat in the green boa. She was actually singing and got quite carried away. I'm still trying to make out exactly what we look like other than fools. I don't recall any elf looking like we did! Oh well! As I said, we also had Father Christmas with us. For the life of me, I can't remember his name. Another sign of old age. I think most elves are hndreds of years old. We had a little gift bag made up for the girls. It contained a stone carved with the word "believe", a bracelet with the saying, "be steadfast and immoveable, always abounding in good works" and a bookmark with the theme. Now of course what's Christmas Day without the Christmas supper. It was almost 100 degrees oustsied and probably another 2o degrees more inside the kitchen but our sisters labored diligently to give us a fantastic meal to rave about. We had turkey, dressing, cranberries, mash potatoes and gravy with homemade apple and pumpkin pie with ice cream and whipped cream for dessert. Suddenly I'm feeling very hungry. I think I need a snack. Now there's a tradition we have here in our girl's camp that I don't know if it's done at every gc. There's a song we sing if

you get caught with your elbows on the table:
Lesley, Lesley if you're able,

get your elbows off the table,

this is not a horse's stable

but a first-class dining table.
Stand up, stand up, stand up and sing us a song, a song.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and sing us a song.

Well one of the ones to get caught was the 1st counsellor in the stake president, President Blakeney. He had a great time singing and of course the girls' couldn't resist but to sing along with him.