Beck Family Party

This was my year to be in charge of the big Beck family Christmas party. There are five siblings and four of us live in Utah so we switch off the responsibility. This year 52 family members were able to come. It's a growing group and we love to have everyone get together. For those who were interested we met at the outdoor ice rink downtown for ice skating before the party. It was cold, but with the Christmas lights glowing and music playing we had a blast. After skating everyone congregated at our house for a feast. I fixed cinnamon/apple roast pork tenderloin with cranberry pine nut rice. Everyone else brought the rest of the food like rolls, salad, veggies & appetizers. It was a trick to seat 52 people, but we borrowed lots of folding tables & chairs, moved furniture and made it work. There's always room for one more right?!

After dinner we had a family Christmas sing-along. It was WILD. I had gathered lots of band instruments & jingle bells so every little kid had something to play. I also found some black mustaches at the party store. Taylor randomly handed out the mustaches and told the guys to put them on. Our first song started out with the mustached men standing up and singing for us. It all went crazy after that and we sang Christmas carols in opera voices, chipmunk voices and any other crazy off the wall thing you could think of. It really took the pressure off for those who don't really like to sing and for those of us who do it added another element of FUN. We passed out the traditional oranges and candy canes at the end of the party & I would call it a successful Beck family party.