Putnam Family Christmas Party

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had our annual Putnam Christmas party. I always enjoy getting together with my Putnam family and this party has been a yearly tradition for as long as I can remember.

Thanksgiving weekend must really wipe Leah out because she falls asleep waiting for Santa to come every year at this Christmas party. So I had to make sure I got yet another picture of her asleep at the party. 

Here's a picture of Corbin getting an up close meeting with Santa when he came in. I think the look on his face is priceless.

And here's a picture of those in my immediate family who were able to be there. My brother, Clayton, and his family weren't able to make it. But the rest of us were there.

Leah is smiling in this picture, but in reality she was really nervous about talking to Santa. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get her to at least stand by him for a picture. I think she did as least tell him what she wanted. And Corbin wasn't interested in sitting on Santa's lap at all!

Here's a picture of my mom sitting on Santa's lap to show the kids that it is not scary at all.

Corbin was pretty excited about the little ball he got for a present.

And Leah loves puzzles, so she was pretty excited about her present too.

Here's a picture of my grandparents sitting with Santa. It is such a blessing to have both of them here for another year. However, they had both taken falls within a couple weeks before this picture was taken. If you were able to look close enough at them you'd probably see how bruised up they are. My grandma still had stitches in her head from her fall. But Grandpa was just bruised up quite a bit on his arm. They are both getting really unstable but they are still really independent. It makes me worry a lot about them. But I'm glad that they are both still with us. At 96 and 86 years old, that's pretty remarkable.

Here's a little family selfie just for fun!

After all the kids had a chance to sit on Santa's lap, they all came up with Grandpa and Grandma to sing a couple Christmas songs with Santa. Here's Leah singing with her cousins, Kaylynn and Cameron.

Having a pinata is another long-time tradition for this party. Corbin wasn't sure what to do at first, but it didn't take long for him to catch on to using a bat to hit something.

Leah was excited to take her turn. She had helped us fill the pinatas the night before, so she knew what kind of fun things were in there.

After all the little kids had a turn hitting the first pinata, it was still in tact. So my aunt had Ross put on a blindfold and take a turn whacking at it. It took him a few swings, but he finally got it busted open.

Overall, it was a fun party and of course was over too soon. The turn out for the party was impressive. Our family is up to over 160 members now and I think there were about 140 people there that day (some were visitors that other family members had brought to the party). But there were still a lot of us there, much more than usual. I'm so glad we have such a big fun family. It's just too bad that we don't get to see each other very often any more.