The festivities at Busy Bees this morning were lots of fun.  Laura and Pennie greeted us as we arrived, and handed out our custom name tags

while Monica provided some music.

Pennie was definitely sporting the best holiday outfit:

Everyone enjoyed playing LRC, and for much of the time it looked like I was going to win the pile of fat quarters at our table - but in the end it turned out to be Monica.

The donations for the door prizes were wonderful, and there were so many packages that everyone went home with something.  The vast majority of the packages contained Christmas-themed gifts (the one I brought contained three items from the Christmas basket I won at the Havasu quilt show) but the one I chose had a box of TEN jigsaw puzzles.

There was an ornament exchange, the requirement being that they had to be ones the Bees had made themselves.  The ladies outdid themselves with respect to creativity and "adorability", so it was not surprising that there was some 'stealing' - like of this cute gnome that Mary opened but ultimately did not get to keep. 

Louise also had her stocking 'stolen'.

I was surprised no one stole Peggy's mini stocking.

I gifted Laura some penguin scissors - and she'd brought a pair for me!  

We both got quite a laugh out of that.

In the afternoon Cara and Zenna came for a visit.  Brownie and I waited for them by the drive-thru gate, and when Zenna spotted us she started boing-ing up and down.  Her excitement was delightful to see.