Saturday, December 21, marked the annual youth Christmas celebration. The festivities began with a prayer over the food. Soon after that, hungry young people lined up for the meal, which included tasty Chicken Schnitzel topped with mushroom gravy, buttered carrots, pickled red cabbage, fruit punch, and cheese fondue.

The Christmas outfit competition took place after dinner. Contestants were judged based on the scale of applause from the crowd, and categories included “Most Festive,” “Least Festive,” “Most Retro,” “Most Outrageous,” and “Best Overall in Show.” Winners received two Chick-Fil-A coupons. Succeeding the costume contest, the youth took a group picture in front of the Christmas trees in the Lodge. After that, dessert was served: a scrumptious apple pie with vanilla ice cream on the side.

Following dessert, Erik Calhoun divided everyone into groups to begin the third installment of the "Great, Great, Great Christmas Race Scavenger Hunt.” This led teams all over the Campgrounds and across the street at the church in search of clues, while completing fun and interesting tasks. Some of these included: taking a train ride, playing Christmas trivia, crafting paper garlands, creating an original Christmas carol, doing physical exercises, and reciting Bible verses from the Christmas story. The race ended with each team making a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the Lodge.

As the chaos from the scavenger hunt died down, the young people enjoyed a surprise greeting from Sola Adesope and his wife, Tolu. Accompanied by a brass ensemble, everyone sang Christmas carols to the Adesopes. Brother Erik then led the group outside for more caroling at the homes of the Lamberts, Lees, and Rilers. Then everyone met back in the Lodge where warm and delicious hot cocoa sat waiting. Finally, it was time for the white elephant gift exchange, where there were several fun prizes and many exciting steals. Halfway through opening these gifts, everyone was interrupted by impromptu singing of the largly plagiarized Christmas songs produced during the scavenger hunt. They were quite humorous!

When the gift exchange was finished, it seemed as though everyone went home a winner. Brother Erik closed the festive event with prayer and warm wishes to all who came. It was a wonderful Christmas evening, greatly enjoyed by every attendee.