Holidays Fit for the King

Every November, my church puts on a women's event called Holidays Fit for the King.  It's a day that focuses on how to make Thanksgiving and Christmas less stressful and more a time of celebration and rejoicing.  Every year, my friend Kristen and I decorate a table together for breakfast time and then go to two workshops together.

Here's our table, which was a Christmas-carol theme:

Let's zoom in on Kristen's a-MAZ-ing wreath she made out of sheet music:

Yep, go ahead and soak in all the awesomeness.

We're definitely minimalists (wait until you see my other post with some of my favorite tables other people decorated), but we have fun getting together and planning and decorating.  This event's supposed to be no-stress, right?

All the women eat breakfast at the decorated tables, listen to Christmas carols sung by One Voice (an amazing female group of teenage girls), and listen to a speaker.  We were encouraged with words about why we need a savior, and why Christmas is a time of good news of great joy.  After the speaker was done, we went to workshops of our choosing.

We attended Biblical Family Traditions and Totes for Hope.  The first workshop was all about creating traditions that focus your family on the purpose of the season.  Most of the traditions were for people with kids, but one tradition I liked was the Thanksgiving box.  When great things happen in a family during the year, they put trinkets and mementos in the box to represent those blessings.  On Thanksgiving, they go through the box and pull out one item at a time, talking about all the great things that have happened to their family during the year.  Then, they write down the items and clean out the box for another year of blessings.  I like this idea -- simple, sentimental, and a great reminder when it's hard to think of what happened in January or February of every year.

The Totes for Hope was more service-minded.  We learn about a mentoring/tutoring program Providence does with the YMCA and we made and packed tote bags with school supplies to give the students in January.  It was a fun way to focus on someone other than yourself during the holidays.

I love HFFTK.  It is by far my favorite event Providence puts on.  Good food, good fellowship, good words, good ideas, and good golly, I'm ready to get my holiday-on now!