Take a deep breath.

Whew! It's OVER. Yee-haw. Christmas in Zarahemla is officially now a thing of the past. And nope, I didn't get a single picture taken of anything. Still breathing sighs of relief, though. Should I talk about all the things that went wrong? Besides being a couple hundred bucks over budget, that is... how about the fact that our piano player broke her arm yesterday and couldn't play for us? The fact that the video Rachel had spent a week on crashed her computer, and we weren't able to show it? Or how about the fact that we hadn't run through the program even ONCE with the actors, and therefore everyone was guessing as to where to be, where to stand, when to leave, and what to do while the spotlight was on them? Or how about the fact that I had no stage hands backstage, and forgot to turn all the stage lights on while the actors were up there? The fact that we had WAY TOO MUCH FOOD, but yet, not an ice cube anywhere for the drinks? Oh, and I SO forgot to get a chorister for the last song, so no one knew when to start or stop Silent Night. Nice, huh? How about the young women, the YW leaders and Jackie spending HOURS on the salt dough tokens and then we didn't end up even using them! Ugh. Or Ashlee cutting 40 yards of tule into countless strips that we didn't end up using either? Double ugh.

**Sigh**

So all the things that went right?

1 - BROTHER BILL, for one. Holy cow, he's great. Even time and time again, when I take advantage of him, activity after activity, he's still willing to lend his talents. Again. At the last minute. Again.

2 - The food was excellent, I thought, at least. I loved that someone else made it and all we had to do was go pick it up...

3 - We had a backup piano player fill in at the last second, and she did wonderfully!

4 - The Great and Spacious Apparel Shop was a HIT! Ashlee and Co. outfitted the entire ward as Nephites, and everyone got into it and looked great.

5 - Almost all of our singers were great, though the primary's 2nd verse knowledge of "Samuel tells of the Baby Jesus" was a little fuzzy. Mary was pure and lovely, and remembered every word, and completely looked the part. I wish I could have watched her sing, instead of turning pages at the piano!

6 - Decor was... involved. Ha! Everyone complimented it, though - so that tells me I just looked at it for too long, when I feared it was just cheesy as heck. At least our fake/real palm trees looked cool, thanks to Deirdre!

7 - and the last positive thing: this activity taught me that we HAVE to scale back. Next year will be about simplicity, methinks. Stay tuned!