Merry Christmas?

"Christmas?" you say.

"In July?" you say.

Indeed, its is as you say. Christmas in July.

Here at camp we do some odd things. It just so happened that this year we decided to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of July. We are only together as a staff for 10 weeks, none of which include the real Christmas, so it was kind of fun to make-believe together.

It ended up being quite a production.

We warned the staff a couple weeks in advance, and had everyone draw names for the secret Santa gift exchange.

A few days before the big event a few other coordinators and myself invaded the kitchen at odd hours to make cookies and fudge and other delicious Christmas treats.

Friday night we set up the tree. Yes, we had a tree. How did we get a tree? Therein lies the tale... You see, a few weeks back, we had a little, um, incident with a bus. Mmmhmm. Yeah. Let's just say, well, that it prefered to be horizontally possitioned for a time. Anyway, the point is, when it rolled off the road it happened to knock over a relatively small tree. (At this point I should probably note that no one was seriously hurt in the accident. It was bad, but that makes it a little easier to instill some leivety into the situation.) Someone saw the tree and decided that we might as well keep it, so it was brought back to camp and put in some water to save it for Christmas.

So, as I was saying, Friday night we set up the tree. That was a feat in itself, as we were sadly lacking in the tree stand department. We made due with a large pot, several long nails, and some wedges of wood.

After successfully positioning the tree in an upright position, we then managed to find Christmas lights, some of which actually worked. We hung lights on the tree, and then hung icesicle lights outside on the dining room porch.

I have to say, it looked pretty cool. The family campers might have thought we were mildly touched in the head, but they did enjoy the pine-tree scent. Not that the tree was actually a pine, but anyway.

I spent some time finishing my Christmas gift for my "secret Santa" person: an Elijah action-figure. :)

I then finished of the "Christmas Eve" by deciding to make Christmas ornaments only slightly before midnight. Which means I got to bed after 1am. Have I mentioned that I need to be in the kitchen by 6:15 on Saturday? It was a short night, and I didn't even see Santa.

The next day we got the campers all fed and on their way and then we headed into town for a staff trip. I got to see my parents and take a nap and eat a falafel from the Pita Pit, so it was a pretty good day.

We got back to camp around 7 and rushed to get a dinner of BLTs ready. Everyone else rushed to finish and wrap their presents. When people arrived in the dining hall I put them to work hanging my homemade ornaments on the tree. I liked it. We had an enjoyable dinner together, cleaned up a bit, and then gathered around the tree for the festivities.

We opened with Harvey reading the Christmas story out of Luke. We then sang a few Christmas carols before progressing to present opening. As a side note, I have to say it's rather funny and a bit unfortunate how few people know more than one verse to most of the Christmas carols. Oh well.

For presents we ended up passing out one at a time, watching people open them, laughing and admiring, and then finding out who gave the gift. Some of the gifts were quite hilarious. I have to say that I was quite pleased by how well people seemed to like what I gave.

When we finally finished with presents we had Christmas goodies, a sugar cookie decorating table, and apple cider. All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening. Call us crazy, but it was worth it.