Ok my dear blogger friends.  I said I would try and take come pictures of my charity girlfriend party so here are some of the pictures from last night.  I missed a few things because of having so much fun and running around being the hostess but I have to say it was alot of fun.

I really have the best group of friends and it was nice to celebrate them last night.  We eat, drink, laugh cry and do alot of hugging.

I know these pictures I am showing you mean alot to me I am just hoping seeing the fun will inspire some of you to celebrate the true friends in our lives.  I do not know what I would do without my great group of girlfriends.

Enjoy!!!! Be inspired to plan a get together and celebrate friends and family.

My center piece for the food table. Simple fresh greens and great smelling candles and of course those fab candles that smell nice and look like real candles.  I love the flickering wicks.

Yummy foods.  All recipes from pinterest!!!!

My friend Pat and Sandy enjoying some of the yummy goodies.

Cindy, Nancy and Sissy enjoying some yummy food too!!

This my blogger friends is what this party is all about.  The greatest group of girlfriends ever!!!!!

My daughter Jen and her bff Amy.  They made there cute outfits.  Footed jammies from Target with the Christmas story theme and then they made tutu's with jingle bells.  They were so adorable. They won the prize for cute!!!!!

These are my two daughters Jen and Kimmie. Love them both so much and I feel so blessed.  They have brought really great girlfriends to join our group too.  I am so excited I can share this party with them.

Beautifully wrapped gifts that all benefited wonderful charities.

Some of the beautiful gifts to be exchanged.

Marybeth and Val with their pretty gifts to exchange.

My friends Ann, Linda and Kathy holding some pretty little gifts.

Val scored this beautiful tote bag that the proceeds helped a domestic battered women's shelter.

OMG I wanted to steal this special gift.  Pat got this beautiful three tiered cake/cookie plates.  This went to help a women's shelter too.  This was made out of old vintage plates. The picture does not do this justice it really was a beautiful gift.  Recycled and also helped to benefit women in crisis.

Nancy scored this beautiful handmade scarf that helped women outside this country in 3rd world countries make a better life for themselves and their children. It really was so pretty and soft.

My daughter's friend Katie got Kimmie's gift in the exchange. Kimmie purchased this comfy pair of Tom's shoes for her gift. Tom's then donates another pair of shoes to someone in need with the purchase of these.  They were Katie's size too so it was meant to be for her to win these in the exchange.

My friend Sissy won my gift which was baking sheets that helped the local food pantry and also a cookie cook book from Kohl's cares and the pretty painted two tier cookie container that helped women in need.

These were are three runner ups for the ugly/cute Christmas sweater contest.  Sandy on the left won first place and Kimmie came in second and Val 3rd with her sparkly snowman sweater.  We had alot of fun digging out those old Christmas Sweaters from the back of our closets.  It was fun to see what everyone came up with.

Once again this is why I do this party each year.  This celebrates the best group of girlfriends anyone could have.  I am truly blessed to have them all in my life.  We had a great night celebrating all together.  I love you all.

I wanted to post about my charity girlfriend party I am hosting at my home on Friday night.  This party started about 6 years ago and has been a big hit ever since.


The whole idea of the party is for all of us girlfriends to get together and celebrate each other's friendship and then we also have a gift exchange where the proceeds from buying the gift go to your favorite charity.  It always is so special to see what everyone comes up with for gifts.  We play a cute story game exchange and then when you end up with your gift you open it and the person it is from tells why they chose this particular charity to buy their gift from.  The stories are heartwarming. 

We also do an ornament exchange and I have a few other fun games we play where the proceeds for the prizes go to charity too.

Here are a few of the prep pictures I have for the party.  I will try to remember in all the fun on Friday to take some pictures of my girlfriends and what beautiful gifts they come up with to post later.

At this time of year we get so busy trying to get the house ready, bake and buy and wrap gifts so this night is a special gift from me to my bff's.  I am so blessed to have the most fantastic group of girlfriends and I love to host this party in honor of them.  My life would not be the same without them.

A night for all my angel girlfriends to come and celebrate our friendships.

The invites go out.

Each year I have a theme for my charity girlfriend party.  This years theme is Tequila and Tiara's.  Everyone will get a Tiara when they arrive and we will be drinking special Christmas Margarita's.  Everyone knows no Tiara is complete without pink fuzzy slippers.  I got each of them a pair of NAP fuzzy comfy slippers to wear too.  This party is all about comfort and joy!

Special pink magical wand glasses for our beverages!!!
Everyone brings a special appetizer to share too. Good food and drink.

I do a party favor for each girlfriend and this year I found this yummy pink moscato wine where the proceeds went to breast cancer awareness and the cute girly ornaments were just a cute added touch to the wine bottles.
 

Each ornament on the wine bottles was just a little different and one was cuter than the next.  So each girlfriend will have a cute ornament to take home too.

This is probably my favorite twist to this years party.  We are all wearing our cutest or ugliest Christmas sweaters.  The one who wears the "cutest" or  "ugliest" as the case may be sweater to the party will receive this prize.  It is the Bulls EyeTarget dog and all the proceeds go to St. Jude's Research Hospital.  He is wearing his cute Christmas Sweater!!!!! I also attached a Target gift card where the dog on the gift card has a Christmas Sweater that lights up!!!! I just loved this prize this year.  How appropriate I thought for the party.  The prize matches the contest and also benefits charity.  Love it!!!!!

Of course if you saw my last post I showed you these cute little nests I got from the Dollar Tree for a buck.  Everyone will be going home with one of these little ornaments for their tree and one to pass on to a complete stranger or friend or family member or neighbor etc.  The German legend is that if your Christmas Tree has a nest in it the family will have good health and prosperity throughout the year.  I want these to be passed on as a charitable act.  So everyone will receive these little cuties.

 

We also play a game with a Christmas story poem.  Each person gets one of these identical gifts and we read a cute story and pass the gifts around.  Everyone one ends up with a gift at the end of the story.  The gifts are identical and are from Laura Ashley. They are washing bags for your bras to keep them nice in the wash.  Some of the proceeds of  these went to Breast Cancer Research.  The special part of this game is that one of these packages has a hidden Victoria Secret Gift Card.  So someone by luck will not only get a great wash bag for lingerie they will also receive a gift card to VS.

This is my all wrapped up girlfriend charity gift for the exchange. The lucky person who receives my gift this year will get a beautiful set of baking cookie sheets where the proceeds went to the Chicago local food pantries to help feed children locally and they will also get a hand painted double decker cookie container that is just painted beautifully with an angel.  The proceeds from this purchase went to the Angel Network for Children and then I was in Kohl's and saw the Kohl's Care's Charity had a wonderful cookie cook book for $5 where the proceeds went to Koh's Cares so that was great to go with my baking theme.

My wrapped ornament for the ornament exchange.  I hope whoever gets my pretty ornament will love it.


This Party is so much fun.  We laugh and cry and hug and have a great time all together.  My two daughters now that they are grown and live by me bring some of their girlfriends that night too. Our girlfriend celebration has really grown.  It is a special night to celebrate each other and how blessed we all are to call each other friend.  I love that the gifts we share with each other go to help others less fortunate too.

I will try to remember to post some pictures from the party on Friday night.  It should be so much fun.  I can't wait to see the Christmas sweaters everyone has dug out of the back of the closet to wear for the contest!!!! Hmmmmmm Tiara's, pink fuzzy slippers and  cute/ugly Christmas Sweaters.  Should be interesting!!!!

I hope this will inspire some of you to remember the importance of girlfriends in our lives and also those less fortunate and have a girls night out of your own.
XXXOOO
Kris