The Spirit of Christmas Is Alive at the Fremont County Bar Association

James is the Vice President of the Fremont County Bar Association (he will be the president next year). The annual Christmas party was Friday night. The president, our friend Rachelle, had a piano recital for her daughters so she couldn't make it until near the end of the evening, which meant that James was in charge for the beginning of the party. We missed our ward Christmas party to attend, but that is fine because the bar party had prime rib. I never pass up free prime rib -- mmmm, delicious!

After we ate our delicious meal and enjoyed great company, we played a game similar to the White Elephant game, except that all of the gifts were new and purchased by the Fremont County Bar Association. We could choose a gift from the table, or we could steal one from someone else, but if we had one stolen from us we had to choose a new one from the table rather than steal someone else's (to save time). Everyone received a ticket as they came to the party, and they pulled the tickets out of a jar to determine who chose a gift. I was near the beginning to choose a gift and I opened a $50 gift card to the Cowfish Restaurant (a very nice, expensive restaurant in town. I have only eaten there once and I think it was for a birthday or anniversary). Needless to say, I was very excited about the gift card. The gals at the table behind me warned me not to get too attached to it.

As promised, as soon as their ticket was pulled the first girl stole the gift card from me, despite the fact that I was sitting on it. The gift card was stolen by a few other people, but when it was James' turn he stole the card back. I sat on it again and hoped that people would forget where it ended up. Then the other girl at this table had her ticket pulled and she confiscated the gift card back from me. We didn't have a chance of getting it back because we had both already used our tickets. I ended up with a whoopee cushion when I picked my replacement present (which I will wrap up and give to one of the kids for Christmas!), and an attorney who had received a bottle of sparkling cider felt sorry for me so he gave me that (he'd lost the bottle of wine that he'd originally picked, and he wasn't too excited about the sparkling cider). James ended up with a $25 gift card to Radio Shack, which is also pretty cool -- I'm sure we'll get great use out of that! Judge Young & his wife Cindy ended up with the $50 Cowfish gift card. Someone was looking for it and when he finally realized who had it, he decided to go for something else. :)

The night was fun and it was funny to watch people fight over the various gifts. The $50 Cowfish gift card traveled around the room all evening. The bottles of wine and other alcohol (I kept having to ask our neighbor Erna what each bottle was -- one of them was blue! That one was fought over a lot). We were gone for nearly 4 hours and the kids all did great at home (and the house was SPOTLESS when we got home -- Cameron & Micah had cleaned it). The kids didn't even call us ONCE (a record for them) and everybody got along with very minimal fighting!

The evening had been a success, and as we were getting ready to leave and putting our coats on, Judge Young's wife Cindy set the $50 Cowfish gift card on the table in front of me, gave me a hug and said, "Merry Christmas!" I couldn't believe it! That was so nice of them! As we were going out the door, I thanked the judge and he gave me a hug and wished me a Merry Christmas. He told James, "take her out!" and James said, "I will," but he didn't know what the judge was talking about until we got to the car and I told him that Cindy had given me the gift card. Judge Young has always been very good to us. James clerked for him for a year and a half right out of law school and learned so much from him.

Yes, the spirit of Christmas is very alive at the Fremont County Bar Association. I hope that someday when I am in that kind of position, I will do the same thing and make someone as happy as I was that night. The world is full of good, generous people, isn't it?