Christmas Weekend Highlights

It's a sad but true fact that I have bad luck with Christmas in the past. Somehow I manage to ruin it, or someone else ruins it for me (no, I shall not share specifics). But aside from a hideous 24-hour flu that ripped through my little family within 3 days I had a marvelous holiday this year!! It was one of my favorite holiday weekends, yet, and I am so grateful to everyone I got to share it with. I am so very, very blessed!

Highlights

• Half workday Friday (during which I finished everything I wanted to!), then a session at the Salt Lake Temple
• Touring the lights at the temple
• Sleeping in Christmas Eve morning, then cleaning my condo (I do love a clean house!)
• Dinner at the Cravens

• Recounting what each person is most thankful for
• Dinner companions Dad and Spencer 
• Gram getting the almond in the chowder
• Participating in the live Nativity for the first time in years (I make a terrific shepherd), the little cousins playing the wise men, Lindsey as the Angel/Star, Bryce and Kim as Joseph and Mary, and baby James as the baby Jesus (a real baby makes such a difference)
• Talent show*: singing and dancing nieces, Aaron's Elvis impression, ducking nunchucks, whacking "Jingle Bells", "Little Brothers", my Emma monologue, Spencer's original song, little cousins' piano solos, "Mr. Nobody", and ringing bells. *I made a very short video of the show, but Youtube is taking forever to load and I'm just not that patient anymore. Oh, well.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Claymation Christmas Celebration (which, miraculously, my grandmother had never seen!)
• Sleeping at my own house while the grandkids slept over at my mom's.
• Church with my mom and Aaron; my dad singing in the choir

• Distracting the little girls while Mom made breakfast; who knew making circles in the carpet with pot lids could be so darn entertaining?
• Blueberry cream cheese french toast -- YUM!!!
• Mom calling our very late breakfast "elevensies"
• Mom: "What does it mean when a present is wrapped and under the tree but says it's from Santa?" G-unit: "It usually means the present is so dumb [i.e. socks, undershirts] that the giver doesn't want to take credit for it."
• G-unit passing out presents haphazardly
• Peter and Jordyn skyping in from Philly to watch

• Eating more than my share of candy (chocolate oranges, raspberry sticks, and beef jerky-- oh my!)
• My nieces discovering beef jerky and afterwards constantly asking for "more chicken"... including the stick I was holding in my hand (I finally got to eat the entirety of the third piece :P)
• Once they opened the doll house, the girls were no longer interested in opening presents; G-unit was only too happy to take over for them :-D
• Unckie Aaron taking over the dollhouse assembly because Adam was too sick to do it
• I was completely spoiled and cannot be thankful enough
• My gifts seemed to be a hit!
• Breezy sleeping in my lap while I watched A Christmas Story (her first words when she jolted awake were "Where's my chicken?!")
• Helping Mom make dinner
• Ham, veggie casserole, funeral potatoes, Pillsbury crescent rolls, english trifle
• By that time, most of the adults were sick, so there weren't many eaters. Thankfully, they were all much better the next day.
• Helping my Mom with the dishes

• Visiting with Kate and Brandon
• losing splendidly to all at MarioKart
• catching up with Laren
• chatting about anything and everything
• Spending Monday watching The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and Oliver and Company with beloved gal pals Liz, Mandie, and Carrie. (We didn't do much watching -- much more fun to talk with each other!)
• Reading an entire issue of Entertainment Weekly from cover to cover!
• My mom's sugar cookies are the BEST IN THE WORLD!!!
• Quality time with the novel Pride and Prejudice, before falling asleep early

Sure, Tuesday morning I awoke at 3 a.m. to the unfortunate discovery that it was my turn to suffer the flu everyone else in the family had already survived, but at least it was only a one-day illness. It would have been nice to not be the same day I planned to go sledding with the brothers and nephew, but I can't have everything, and I HAD had an awful lot of wonderfulness up to that point. I guess there are worse things than spending all day in bed and forcing water into my system as much as possible. Plus, it gave me a nice excuse to stay in bed again and watch episodes of Enterprise all day yesterday. Maybe today I'll feel up to reorganizing my bookshelves, running to the bank, and seeing Mission Impossible 4.

Oh, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'll probably keep my decorations up through at least half of January. I already miss the music on the radio. Some people think Christmas lasts too long, but I don't think the season lasts nearly long enough!

I hope you all had a happy Christmas, too!