Love Finds You . . . Literary Ladies

You might remember this post about how my friend, Kristen, and I fell in love with Melissa's book club ideas at her church.  We took the idea to the elders and they approved that we could begin one as well.  EXCITED, yes, we were!!!!  Thursday night was our second meeting.  We had read the book Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska and now it was time to come back together to read and discuss the book.

We had a great team that worked with us to get the commons area decorated for the night.  We took empty square Kleenex boxes and wrapped them up as presents.  We placed them on various cake stands which sat on red chargers.  I brought all of my glass vases and serving pieces which we filled with ornaments to add a little more to the tables.

Kristen chose our place setting for the night that brought out the Christmas (as well as snow) theme.

We had everyone bring their favorite Christmas treat and, boy, did we treat eat!!! It was fabulous!!! Kristen made these North Pole cupcakes (thank you, Pinterest) to go along with the book we read.  I made the flags for the cupcakes. (You can get the flags here and just add them to toothpicks.)

As the guests arrived, they were able to make a candy ornament to remember the night by.  I used my cricut and the Joys of the Season cartridge to make these.  The ladies glued the pieces together, punched a hole at the top and most wrote on there the date, Literary Ladies, etc.

I made Candy Cane Punch for us to enjoy throughout the night.  I had never made it before (again, thank you, Pinterest), but it was a HUGE hit!!!

Candy Cane Punch

(from Taste of Home)

2 quarts of Peppermint ice cream

2 jars of strawberry jelly

2 liter of lemon line soda

candy canes to garnish

Mix the jelly and 2 c. of soda together over the stove until the jelly becomes melted.

Chill jelly mixture and remaining soda.  Just before serving, place 6 cups of ice cream in a punch bowl. Gently stir in the jelly mixture.  Add remaining soda and ice cream.

Makes 3 1/2 quarts.

You can also do it the "Becky did not read the instructions until 30 minutes before" way which is melting the jelly and soda together but no chilling happened!!!!!  We just mixed everything together and it was still wonderful!!!!!

Our meeting was fabulous.  We had a short devotional that went along with the book as well as a time of prayer and singing.  We also enjoyed thinking about the book we had read, and many were trying to guess what the next book would be!!! We are already so excited about our March meeting.  We kicked it up a notch with the book selection.  Many ladies in our congregation already read this author and love her, so we are excited to announce that our next book will be from best selling author, Francine Rivers . . .

Her Mother's Hope