This Christmas

...was, once again, a busy one! Every year Christmas seems to come around so quickly and then fly by ten times faster. It almost takes as much effort to embrace the season as it does to prepare for the day. This year, I didn't feel like I got fully into the holiday spirit until 2 days before Christmas when we went to a Christmas concert with my family. Here we are waiting for the concert (T Minus 5) to start. It was an awesome concert and definitely got me into that Christmas mood. For me, it's almost like a switch that turns on in me. I can trim the tree and deck the halls, make gingerbread houses and go to Christmas parties and give it my all... and still not feel the Christmas spirit. But then, all of a sudden, the switch turns on and the Christmas spirit engulfs me. Unfortunately this year it happened later than usual and I was sad to see it go by so fast. Luckily the things, or rather the people, that make Christmas special to me are available year round, I just need to remember to make more time for them.

Have you ever seen the movie Four Christmases? Sometimes I feel like that is how our Christmas is... well it's not that bad because our families aren't that crazy but it is a lot of work squeezing four Christmas celebrations into one day.

Christmas #1: Jason and Nicole's Christmas.
This year we decided to open all of our gifts to each other (well the ones we hadn't already unwrapped) on Christmas Eve. This helped us avoid the need to get up at 6:00 in the morning to open our gifts and then make it to my Dad's house in time. And truthfully, I still get a little restless Christmas Eve night. It's just hard for me to sleep when I'm so excited to give my gifts to Jason. So this year, when I woke up in the middle of the night with excitement, I was able to fall back asleep knowing that we were already done exchanging gifts.

We also threw together a last minute Christmas Eve dinner and invited my family over because it didn't make much sense for us to cook an entire ham for just the two of us.

Tristan looks like he is hating life right now, but I promise he wasn't. Our house might be small but it was fun to cram everyone in for dinner. I love entertaining, can't wait until we have a place that would be more suitable for it.

I just had to throw these pics in... I was pretty proud of my last minute table setting.

After dinner, came dessert...

Hailey made some delectable sugar cookies and frosting-because as history will show, I have not yet mastered the art of frosting! Notice the plate full of sprinkles... well the sprinkles I bought did not have the shaker top, you know with holes in the top, it was just one big hole. Apparently, Tristan didn't know this until he dumped the entire jar of sprinkles on this plate! Definitely the highlight of the night!We had a lot of fun decorating them and just as much fun eating them all weekend!

Christmas #2: Christmas with Dad
Usually we start getting calls around 7:00 am on Christmas morning, wondering when we are coming over. This year, we told them no calls until at least 7:30 am. Much to our surprise they were still asleep when we walked in the door at 9:00 am. Not for long though as I walked in yelling "Wake Up!! It's Christmas!!!" Pay back...

Jason had a brilliant gift idea for my Dad. It was this sign to go above his shop door. It's the name of his company. {Shameless Plug: go to here to see how amazing he is at woodwork! OR visit his booth in the Ogden Quilted Bear}

My gift idea for our parents was to make a calendar for them. It was a lot of fun to make and I think they enjoyed it... and who couldn't use a calendar full of pictures of their kids? This is a tender picture of all of us looking at the calendar together. Pretty cute, definitely a keeper.

I love this picture... I'm not exactly sure what we were laughing/talking about but it's cute. I love her more every year! We used to fight like cats and dogs, and we still have our differences, but I wish she were closer so we could hang out more. It was a fun morning, full of cheesebraid, hot cocoa, and Wii fit playing.

Christmas #3: Christmas with the Merrill's.
We ventured down the street to the Merrill's around noon for present opening and talking to Elder Merrill (who is coming home in 2 weeks). I didn't take any pictures but it was a pretty fun afternoon. Chuck and Michelle gave us the most wonderful gift... a new garbage disposal! It came a few weeks earlier when our garbage disposal broke after I had my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was greatly appreciated! After a little eating and napping we were on to our fourth and last Christmas.

Christmas #4: Christmas with Mom.
Much later that evening, after driving to Bear Lake, we arrived at our final Christmas at my Mom's. I didn't take any pictures here either, but we had fun opening more presents (upside of divorced parents- more presents, downside of divorced presents- pretty much everything else) and eating more food. My mom saved the best present for last... Hailey and I both unwrapped at the same time a CD case full of DVDs. It took me a few seconds to realize what it was and then it hit both of us... it was all of our home videos on DVDs. One of our favorite things to do when we visit my mom is watch home videos. It's so funny to see how we were when we were little and bring back the memories. I was so surprised, overwhelmed, and happy that I almost cried. We received a lot of wonderful gifts this year, but that gift will be, by far, the most treasured. That night we searched through a few DVDs for the infamous Spice Girls performance from the Thomas Girls Three! Unfortunately we have yet to find the Spice Girls performance even though my mom swears its on the DVDs somewhere. Can't wait to find it... or maybe I can, some of those home videos are a little embarrassing and I'm pretty sure the performance was taped during one of my more awkward stages of life.

My parents may have not been the best about keeping journals/records of their life together, but they sure do have a lot of home videos and in my opinion that's just as good. Have you ever been asked the question "If your house were on fire, what material possessions would you take before you ran out of the house?" Well occasionally I think about this question (kind of weird I know) and I don't really have very many material possessions that I would care to grab. However, when I opened that gift and realized what it was, I immediately began thinking of ways to protect and preserve them forever. Maybe next year I will ask my mom for a fire safe box.
On that same note, I found a way to publish my blog. I knew it could be done I had just never taken the time to look into it. So, now I have a record/journal of everything I have blogged and I plan on making a new book or volume every year. I want my children to know the happenings and thoughts of their parent's {average} life together and hopefully one day these books will be cherished as much as I cherish the home videos. So, if my posts from now on seem a little more personal and thoughtful or long and boring, just know that it's for my kids. I want them to be able to get to know me through this blog. I was getting a little tired of the whole {blog} thing a few months ago. It seemed like a fad and it was quickly fading for me. After publishing my blog, it has given me a restored passion and new purpose for blogging. So now, with a new year, begins my blog turned journal!