OTA Celebrates Year End with Christmas Party

The Ozark Turf Association commenced the 2025 meeting season with a Christmas gathering at Ledgestone Country Club, generously sponsored by Professional Turf Products.

Guests enjoyed a social hour featuring chicken wings, smoky sausage bites, and queso with chips, sipping drinks as they looked back on the previous year.   Following the social hour, dinner was presented featuring a menu that included garden salad, roasted chicken, a selection of sides such as a vegetable medley and macaroni and cheese, as well as a prime rib carving station for guests. Dessert consisted of a Kahlua brownie served with a scoop of ice cream.  

 After dinner, host superintendent Kolby Armbruster and his wife Katie arranged minute-to-win-it games for everyone. Teams were formed: “The Jingle Ballers,” “Tipsy Elves,” “The Fruit Cakes,” and “The Flying Santas.” The first challenge, “Jingle Bell Drop,” required rolling jingle bells down a table into Red Solo Cups—fortunately, no beverages were harmed. “The Flying Santas” took victory in this round. In the “Ornament Relay,” teammates rolled Christmas ornaments across the floor to each other, resulting in a win for “The Fruit Cakes.” For the “Santa’s Cookie Drop,” Oreos were balanced on foreheads and maneuvered into mouths without using hands; with professional cookie wrangler Jeff Sommerer absent, “Jingle Ballers” claimed the title. During the “Snowblower” relay, participants raced to knock cotton ball “snowballs” off upside-down red solo cups using party blowers, after a few close races, some requiring video replay, the “Jingle Ballers” were victorious again. The final game, “Hungry Hungry Reindeer,” had players use their “hooves” (again,red solo cups) to gather in snowballs, and “Jingle Ballers” rounded out the night with yet another win.  The biggest pattern we saw during the games was the presence of red solo cups, coincidence? 

This led to the finale where guest “wrapped” up the evening, unwrapping saran wrap balls filled with prizes while wearing oven mitts.   The “Jingle Ballers” faced off with the winless “Tipsy Elves” The saran ball started with the first player trying to unwrap the ball using the oven mitts, while the next player rolled the dice, once that player rolled a double, the ball passed to that player and the dice went to the next player. This continued around the table.  After two rounds, the gloves came “off”, and people were trying to unroll the ball with bare hands.  Different silly prizes, chocolate candy or gift cards would come out as the ball would unwrap, with the prize going to that player.  The big winner of the first ball was Judi Mills, wife of Ledgestone assistant superintendent Andrew Mills.

The second ball featured the teams of the “Flying Santas” and “Fruit Cakes”, both teams passed the ball around again trying to unwrap the ball with the oven mitts, and again after two rounds, the gloves came off.  The big winner of the second ball concluded another win for the Mills family, as Andrew got the prize from the middle of the ball. 

Everyone who attended had a wonderful time—special thanks to Professional Turf Products for sponsoring the event, Ledgestone County Club for their great food and drinks, and Katie and Kolby Armbruster for making the event enjoyable with their entertainment.