It was no surprise that the annual Holiday Party at Busy Bees this morning was fun.  The ladies who made the decorations for the tables (which were 'raffled' off to 8 lucky winners) sure did a fantastic job.  

There was lots of colorful holiday attire, 

and (naturally!) I loved Laura's penguin sweater:

Susan's 12 Days of Christmas shirt was also well admired.

Louise started off the celebration by following tradition and handing out thank-you gifts to the ladies on her board for all their help this past year.   She'd made adorable little boxes from a variety of  bee-themed fabrics - and I asked her about the pattern because I wanted one. I was definitely surprised when she called my name (and actually looked around the room for the other Bobbi, who hasn't been able to attend for the past year or so.) Louise had made one for me for my "work" of taking photos and posting them to our website! 

We played Left-Right-Center with the 5" squares, and I won one of the rounds at my table. (It was almost <g> as much fun as playing with money after our neighborhood Bunko games...) Then there was the candy cane race, where the players had to pass a candy cane down the line, hooking/unhooking without using their hands.  Judging from the difficulties I witnessed this is harder than it sounds!  Since I was taking photos I did not actually play - but watching their antics (as I raced back and forth between the two teams on opposite sides of the room) I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed myself at least as much as the players did.  Here are some of the shots I snapped during that game:

We had a White Elephant grab bag for those who wanted to participate.  Players wrapped up a quilting-related item they'd bought (or received as a gift) but never used, and as names of participants were called they got to choose one of the brightly-wrapped packages.  Considering everything was an 'unwanted' item, all of them were well-received - but we all agreed that Donna scored the biggest, with a pattern and accompanying large bundle of assorted batik fabrics!

Donna 'just happened' to have two jelly rolls of Judaica fabrics 

which she passed along to me.

Sharon had been busy making felt ornaments for her grandkids,

and surprised me with this adorable penguin one.

Food was plentiful and yummy - 

and despite the generous selection of dessert goodies I behaved myself, only eating one (large) cookie while I waited for the end of the pot luck line.

Still waiting for Richard to appear.  He said it would be at least 2:00 before he finished the other job today, but it's creeping toward 4:00.  Hope we don't run out of day-light again.  I wanna soak!