Tis' the season to love your neighbor

I am still in denial that Christmas is this week. Not that I am not ready or excited for it, but I don't know how it crept up so fast. This season has been busy, busy, busy, as I am sure most of you can relate. December always gets crammed with so much stuff that sometimes I forget to breathe. With that said, I wanted to make sure that we got in one of our Neighborhood Block Parties before the end of the year.

It's always easy to do movie nights in the fall, but once the weather gets a little colder, it's not as easy to have everyone sitting on the lawn for 2 hours at night while they shiver to death. Still, I didn't want November- February to pass us by without connecting with our neighbors. So our little neighborhood team,  decided to do a day time Christmas block party. Simple and sweet. We did it during the day from 2-4 and the weather was perfect (cold but beautiful). We served Christmas cookies and hot chocolate (with marshmallows of course). We had a bounce house for the kids, ornament decorating and some Christmas tunes playing. It was super easy to throw together, set up and tear down. Of course the majority of our guests were kids. In our neighborhood the kids roam free, but we are happy to give them something safe and fun to do. It's also neat to slowly get to know them and have them get to know us over the time frame that we have been doing these parties.  We did however get to meet yet another new neighbor, which is always fun.

When people come for the first time to one of our block parties, they tend to ask why we do these. This week a lady asked if we just had a lot of money to blow (hahaha..that made me laugh). The truth is, we want to make a positive impact on our neighborhood and build relationships with those God has placed right next door or down the street from us. It's so easy to overlook people and get tangled up in our own lives. These block parties are serving as a fun way to love on people (one of God's greatest commandments). So, here are some pics from our Christmas Block Party. We are always looking for new and fun ideas to do for these parties, so if you have any that can be easily replicated, let me know.