Birthday Club Christmas Party

My mom has a group a friends that call themselves the "Birthday Club."  Some of them know each other from growing up together and then some moved to town after they got married.  They're a group of women who love God and love fellowship who have a lot of fun together.  It's my hope to have a group of friends that stays together and cares for each other like this group does.

The Birthday Club has been around as long as I can remember.  I'm fairly certain they got their name because when they all had little kids creating the Birthday Club meant that they absolutely had to go out to eat when it was someone's birthday (thus the name).  I remember growing up that the birthday girl would get a plastic toucan koozie with $50 in it.  Then, when the next person's birthday was up, the past birthday girl would pass along the koozie with $50.  I guess you had the option to either buy something fun for yourself and then put in the next $50 or save it and just pass it along.  

Over the years the group has grown as more kids arrived.  Recently we've started getting married and having babies of our own.  This group throws a fantastic party for you before you get married and are always excited about anything happening in your life.  I definitely saw this yesterday when every single one of them asked me to open my jacket a little so that they could see my growing bump! They were just too excited to wait and see it later.  :)

Anyway, we have always gotten together for a big Christmas party.  In the olden days it was at someone's house and all the kids drew names and everyone got a present.  These days we've definitely outgrown anyone's house becuase I think, at last count, we have 54 people that "qualify" by marriage or birth into this little group!  Yesterday, we had the party at a golf course nearby and it was a great location because the little grand-kids had plenty of area to run around and sing "Yea Alabama" on the microphone.  You know a parent is teaching their child the right thing when they learn the fight song to their school when they're barely walking!

Here's the picture of all the kids, spouses, and grand-kids.  This doesn't even have our parents in the picture AND we're missing, I think, five kids.