Photo Jam 3: Midwinter Christmas Party

This took me a while to find photos of, but about 3 weeks ago, we had a Mid-Winter Christmas Party up at Ngatiawa. It was a great sleepover, complete with games, music, good food, and excellent company. We all had lots of fun! Remember when I said that L'arche likes to celebrate? Well, they're really good at it.

In addition to having everyone in the community let off a bit of steam at the party, the sleepover was a good opportunity for us assistants to see one another and talk after most of the core members had gone to bed. Things were made all the more merry by a surprise guest: Laura, who was community leader for 4 years, but took off one year ago to travel around India and the Pacific Islands, came back. Assistants had been given a bit of warning, but our core members were happily astonished to see her again, especially Leighanne.

After we returned home to Arahata, Laura came around to have dinner and sleep over. Kim, Leighanne, and Brenda were all very happy. All in all, I think that this party was the community's highlight of 2009.

No animals (farm or otherwise) were harmed in the production of these photos, but Peter did prick himself on a pushpin while playing "Pin the Nose on Rudolph."

Check out Peter breakdancing, complete with his Special Olympics swimming uniform. Bust a move, Peter!

From left to right: Ray, a community member at Ngatiawa, and Kim dancing with Akiko, who wore festive pigtails for the occasion.

Stephen in his usual camouflage fatigues being silly with Sophie.

It's a Kiwi Tradition to do these things called "poppers" or "snappers" at Christmas time. Basically, they're cardboard tubes that break apart with a loud crack to reveal candies or toys and a little fortune-cookie-like joke (there were alot of bad puns).

Leighanne, blindfolded, plays a game of "Pin the Nose on Rudolph." Good times all around.

Emmet gives Rudolph his best stab. Brenda is "helping" him to stay blindfolded. Cheater cheater, pumpkin eater.

Noeline enjoys her funny, Nordic-looking hat. Funny hats are apparently another Kiwi Christmas tradition.

Katie and Sophie pose next to the Mid-winter Christmas Tree while donning their reindeer antlers. OOH, sparkly!

Yours truly: Too cool. For school.

Julie dances with Sophie to some groovy beats.

Elias gives disco a whirl with Emmet. In addition to Christmas music, we also enjoyed a random assortment of dance tunes from the 50s through the 90s.

When the action heats up, there's no stopping L'arche's blurry rave effect!

After our feasting at dinner, the dance party got started proper in a circle. I think this is a shot of the Hokey Pokey.

Christian dancing with Noeline, who looks less than enthusiastic.

Emmet gets silly with Christian. What pals.

Brenda gives a big hug to Akiko. AWW...BFFs!