CHRISTMAS AT ABC HOMES

Ethan, our son

Gary and Ethan

Chase, son of house parent's Cindy and Chuck

Jesse, student of college program

Cindy~house parent, Jesse and Carrie, my niece

Chase

Ethan

Gary and David~house parent's

                       Community room decorated for Christmas dinner

We had our big Christmas party. It was a blast! The community hall was all decorated for dinner and our guest. It was so beautiful. I have posted a few pictures to this story, but you will need to go to the photo album to see all the pictures of the party that we posted. (It's the link to the right under pages, marked Christmas in Monticello) Due to privacy issues, we are not able to show picture's of the kids in the program.  The first thing we did was in the foyer of the administration building. Our director told the kids the Christmas story. It was really sweet watching everyone listening so attentively. We went and ate dinner. We had ham, turkey and all the trimmings. It was delicious. Thanks to our cook and her elves that helped make it all possible. Then we were sang a song from some staff members.  It was really sweet. They made their own words up to an " ABC Home Christmas, is the only Christmas for me." They did a really good job. We all had a great time. After dinner we started going cottage to cottage to watch the kids open their gifts. They started opening their gifts and were so excited with what they got. There were Xbox's, digital camera's, play stations, video games, Snuggies, shoe's and a little bit of everything else. We visited from cottage to cottage to see what everyone was getting. It was so much fun! The little kids had gotten Nintendo DS' and they were mesmerized by them. One had gotten a paper jam guitar and he was jamming! We went over to the girls cottage and they were opening their gifts. They had gotten camera's, make-up, perfume and all those things that make us girls beautiful. The boy's were enjoying playing their video games and it was fun to see them all excited and already sharing what they had gotten. I realized that this was one big happy family! We had visitors from town and teacher's that came to watch the kids open their gifts. It was really nice to have them at the party. They got to see a little about what it's like living here. I hope they enjoyed their visit. Walking from cottage to cottage in the night, watching the Christmas lights flicker, it was such a beautiful night. I know God must have been smiling watching his children so happy. I think this party pretty much wrapped up the kids Christmas season. Some will get to go home and visit family and other's will be here with us on Christmas morning. We will get up with them then and they will have a few more gift's to open. It's a very busy season, but worth every sleepless moment. Thank you to all that give and to those who pray to make this ministry possible. God Bless you and Merry Christmas!