Party – Manitoba Ferret Association

20 ferrets and their humans came out to the members only Ferret Christmas Party. Our Christmas party has always been a very low key affair. There are no organized games. This is an opportunity to visit with other members, share your silly ferret stories and be with like minded crazy ferret people. All the ferrets get a chance to meet other ferrets on neutral ground and territorial disputes are confined to “get out of my pet carrier”!

Every year Andy willingly (that’s what we tell ourselves) dresses up as Santa. Members are welcome to take pictures of their ferret(s) with Santa. This is free! Every year several ferrets want to see what’s under that long hair and beard. Really, Andy is a very good sport because some ferrets seem to have a personal grudge against Santa. Maybe they didn’t get that extra large bottle of Ferretone for Christmas last year!

picture with Santa!

After picture taking, we all enjoy the delicious spread of pot luck finger foods and sweets that members brought. The hot apple cider provided by Deb is always the first thing to go! Bridget always spoils us with an assortment of homemade finger foods and homemade pickles!

Once our tummies are full, it’s time for the gift exchange. Everyone that wants to participate brings a $10.00 gender neutral wrapped gift.
We have had to limit the Christmas gift steal to “once” only as that bottle of Ferretone can change hands multiple times and cause some teeth gnashing! This year the candles, ferret paws blanket, ferret bed passed hands as did the Ferretone, the bottle of wine and candles, cookies and treats.

Our president Danial choosing a gift from under the tree

Once the gift exchange was done; we had a very special visitor.
Ferret Santa aka Newton pulling his specialized cart arrived bearing a sack full of treats for all the ferrets in attendance. I’m not sure but I think Santa Newton was strutting his stuff for all the girl ferrets and I think I saw a wink or two exchanged! Much thanks to Fred for creating the whole ferret Santa event. Trouble is, now he has to do this every year! We all loved it so much.

Look mom, it’s Santa Newton with presents!

Every year, we take a group Christmas picture. Some years back , folks picked out a paper sack that might contain a dress, pantyhose, a lumberjack shirt, a bra, you name it. You have to put the item on for the picture. The wardrobe of assorted clothes was starting to look like Value Village so we changed course a few years ago. Now, you match your number to the “silly hat”. Much easier to put on and I must say as I house all the MFA stuff in my spare bedroom, it is much easier on me too!

Merry Christmas 2014

The party wound down at this point. Those of us that hadn’t left early due to other commitments were spoiled with a very special movie. Sharon purchased Santa’s Little Ferrets DVD. There are 3 short stories on the DVD. This movie with ferrets is professionally done. The outtakes after each set were hilarious! Trust ferrets to bring their own version of how things should be done. Sharon has left her DVD with the shelter and we will host another viewing at our upcoming annual Valentine’s Party!

Kathy and Bridget each won the raffle of a beautiful split hammock, Christmas red with glow in the dark eyes. Fred S. made these hammocks and donated them to raise money for the shelter. The ferrets get to watch for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Glow in the dark eyeball hammock sewn and donated by Fred S.

The draw for the StryxNB basket was won by Chantal L.

Please check out all the pictures from the party. Go to Manitobaferrets.ca and click on the flckr icon.

Human Games:

Musical Pumpkins

Witchy Ring Toss

Suck it Up Foamies

Ferret Games:

Best Begging Pose

Paper sack escape

Shape Shifter Escape

Ferret Costume Parade

Sock it to ya

The Ferret Party was a Howl!

The party started with Musical Pumpkins. There were some pumpkins that slid across the floor “accidently” and in the end Kevin was left standing on the last pumpkin!

Our next game was Paper Sack Escape to get the ferrets going. Each of the ferrets got stuffed into paper bags and on command the bags were placed on the floor. Some ferrets investigated the inside of the bag, one furry decided to go to sleep. Chantal and Kevin tied desperately to stuff their 4 ferrets; Oscar, Borshie, Fargo and Charlie all at the same time. With a little help they got stuffed! There was a nose to nose finish but Bella blasted out of the paper sack to win.

We then played Longest Begging Pose. Rosalie, Meeka, Sarah, Borshie, Oscar and Charlie had no interest in begging for Bandit treats or Ferretone thank you very much! We only beg at home.

Deb’s Molly has no pride and begs daily. His time of 4.3 seconds was the best time with Chantal’s Fargo at 3.6 seconds and Sharon’s Sarah coming in third with 2.42 seconds.

We let the ferrets have a break and the humans played Witch Hat Ring Toss. Sounds easy, right? Well some of us couldn’t even get one ring on the hat! Kevin, Adrienne, Zoe, Melissa all scored one ring so their names went into the hat and Melissa won.

We woke up the ferrets to play Pick a Hole. The long narrow box had 3 round holes; each numbered. The ferret was inserted into the box and their owner had to choose which hole the ferret would stick his nose out of. The results were hilarious and some of us should learn from this and never gamble!

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Turnip and Radish (Zoe) Belle (Melissa & Dan) Zipper (Colleen) Meeka (Sharon) Oscar (Chantal & Kevin) were on the same page! Their names went into a hat and Zoe’s Radish won.

We decided to do the Costume Parade before all the ferrets decided they didn’t want to play anymore!

Sharon’s Sarah and Meeka came as road kill

Zoë’s Radish came as a bat, Turnip was a flower in a plant pot and Zoë looked lovely as a Cat-meow

Dan & Melissa’s old sweetie Belle wore Bunny Ears

Dan & Mellissa’s spunky Sara finally agreed to be the pumpkin but she was hoping for a frownie face

Bridget’s Bella and Jace joined forces with Bella as an M & M and Jace as a Candy Kiss

Colleen fought with her furries and sort of won when her boy Baby was finally turned into a baby and her little girl submitted to being Mrs. Skeleton

Deb’s Molly with his ongoing gender issues, rode in as Godiva on his pony

If I missed some ferrets it’s only because we were all laughing so hard, we forgot to take notes!

It was time for another human game – Suck It Up Foamies. We had a bucket of foam Halloween cut outs; skeletons, pumpkins, Zorro mask, witches and lots more. Some had sparkles on them (note to self remove the sparkly ones so we don’t kill someone next year) this game sounded so easy. Using a straw, suck up a foamy and move it to the bucket; moving as many as you can in 30 seconds. Most of us made 5foamies, Kevin and Melissa managed 8 foamies but our Danial using some real fancy toe dancing sucked up 9 foamies to win! Kevin won for most sparkles sucked down his wind pipe or so he hacked at us!

We ended our party with a nice quiet game. Put 4 homemade ferret socks on your ferret and keep them on for one second. You would think that pooped out ferrets would be too tired to keep yanking one paw then another pulling the sock off. Lots of laughter and some mild cursing and Kevin with one of their brood kept the socks on for one second! You all have one year to practice “socking” your ferret!

Andy and Adrienne had a huge pile of leaves for the furries to play in. Molly was the first to dive in!

There was a lot to eat with lots of contributions to the snack table. A special thanks to Andy and Adrienne’s son who saved Deb’s bacon when she forgot the pop. Rhys donated a 12 pack of Coke.

Overall, everyone had a great time and all the ferrets (and humans) went home totally played out!