So Much Christmas

 It's the most wonderful time of the year! I loved being able to come home from school and have over a week before Christmas to do festive things with my family and friends. Please enjoy this journey through my 2011 holiday joy!

A Night in Bethlehem

Me and Rachel, as Bethlehemites.

Our ward went with a more authentic theme this year for the Christmas party. Basically, I went because Rachel had to be a shepherd in the nativity play, and I couldn't just pass up the opportunity to mock her for that. When the angel came, she mouthed, "OH MY GOSH." It was an ingenious interpretation. The soup-and-breadsticks dinner was great, and walking through the live nativity was really sweet. Nice job, wardies.

Gingerbread and Lights Night



A couple of days after I got home, Delanie, Candace and I got together for out yearly gingerbread-house making night. This included serious life-talks in Walmart while shopping for graham crackers and candy. Then we drove through the Layton lights! I love the Layton lights because they are made up of so many random things that have nothing to do with Christmas. Like sharks and unicorns. Also, driving through the tunnel amazes me every time. (On another night, our family drove through the lights four times in a row. Around and around.) We built our graham cracker houses at Delanie's new apartment (which is beautiful!). Delanie told me that this was my year - the first year my gingerbread house was not going to collapse before I could finish it. And she was correct! My house featured Walter the Walrus and it is in fact still standing. I love these girls; I am so lucky to have them in my life. Going on ten years of friendship!



  

Happy Birthday, Dad!

My dad's birthday is precisely one week before Christmas, so it is always an important part of the Christmas countdown. It is a bit difficult to have a happy birthday on a Sunday when you're the bishop, but I think he had a good day. Lauren and I got him a pie, which was a win I felt. We watched one of our favorite Christmas movies, The Nativity Story. It looks like a church movie, but it was in theaters and has legit actors and such. (There's even some violence.) I like it because it brings Mary and Joseph to life as real people with normal lives. I always tear up a bit when Joseph tells Mary he believes her. Perfect start to Christmas week. (Side-note, speaking of good movies to see over the break. Sherlock Holmes 2. If you haven't seen it yet, you must!)

Christmas Carol Sing-In

We've been going to the Christmas sing-along night downtown every year (minus the years we didn't live in Utah) since I was born. Every year it gets bigger. When I was smallish, it was held in Assembly Hall, but since we've lived in Layton, they've had it in Energy Solutions Area. And you better be there when the doors open. It's kind of crazy, but we LOVE it. The more people singing along to the symphony orchestra, the better! Last year Jon Schmidt played at the sing-along, which we very much enjoyed, especially because we got to meet him and he signed Lauren's arm. This year, Alex Boye was the special guest. He was entertaining. And funny: "There are only three black guys in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and if you haven't figured that out, you're inactive." Of course Santa Claus made an appearance, as did the Jazz Bear. Last year, we spent almost the whole time trying to get featured on the jumbo-tron, and finally did near the end. This year, we got on twice right at the beginning! The first was because we were all swaying back and forth, and when there are six girls swaying in a row, it's a bit of a cheery sight. The second time was when Alex Boye came out and Rachel and I held up our hands in the shape of hearts, like the crazy girls do on the Justin Bieber movie. The camera man who was walking down our aisle looked at us, laughed, and filmed us. Then the very old senior missionary next to us started doing the heart thing too. That was a great moment. After the sing-along, we walked around the temple square lights and saw the nativity. Beautiful!


Streamers shot into the crowd by the Jazz Bear



Sleeping Under the Tree

A time-honored Christmas tradition. Although I'm, well, twenty, I still enjoy piling under the tree with all my sisters to sleep by the sparkly lights. We thought about sleeping in a too-small tent like they do in the Kid History Christmas episode, but that didn't happen. The tree is still up so I suppose there's still time...


Watching My Sisters Do Weird Things

Rachel and her besties, Ryan and Shayla, decided to dress up as Christmas characters and take their other friends extremely random presents that they got from DI, such as a wedding dress and three copies of Babe on VHS. I got to be there to take pictures of them. Never a dull moment.



Shopping and the Baking Spirit

During the time between my last final and Christmas Day, I went Christmas shopping at least five separate times. Finding something for each member of our big family is a project, but I love thinking about a specific person and what would make them smile. My favorite shopping moment was when Abbie and I found a Justin Bieber cardboard cutout for the low low price of 19.95, and then propped him up in the passenger seat window all the way home from Ogden. And nothing goes with Christmas shopping like Christmas baking. During baking day, I tend to just hover around and sneak my favorites: peanut butter cookies with the kisses on top. I love Christmas.

A Caroling Party

The day before Christmas Eve, the day we like to call Christmas Adam, we had our family Christmas party with my dad's side. Everyone met at my parents' house and went caroling through some older neighborhoods in our ward. Even though only 4 of the 9 siblings in my dad's family were present, there were still 25 or 30 of us, which was quite a caroling crowd. Of course we made Rachel dress up like Santa again, and all of us filled up the street traveling from house to house. Two little girls who were walking their dog said, "Look, it's like a parade." Indeed, that would be us. After caroling we had the customary Christmas games and gift exchange. My grandparents, who are on a mission in Samoa, joined us via Skype. Rachel had to carry them around on the laptop from person to person, showing them whoever was opening a present. I don't know why that was so funny, but it was.





As was this. Too much
Christmas for Janie.

Christmas Eve

Get this - my mom signed us up to clean the church at 9 am on Christmas Eve. She is definitely a doer. I was less than excited, but as always, we ended up laughing and singing a lot. While cleaning, Rachel, Lauren and I sang all the Spongebob songs that you have to sing on Christmas Eve - "This Christmas Feels Like the Very First Christmas to Me," "Santa's Comin' Tonight Tonight," and "The Best Time to Wear a Striped Sweater is All the Time." Back at home, I spent hours reading all the Christmas books with the little girls, killing time until we headed to Ogden. Christmas Eve night is always at Grandma's in Ogden, and this year was just as happy as ever. We had a bit of an untraditional Christmas Eve dinner - pizza and Olive Garden salads and breadsticks. Yum. We opened our pajamas, like always. Then we played with the Christmas crackers mom brought! I didn't know about English Christmas Crackers until this year - they're these things you pull apart and they make a popping noise and smoke a little bit. It's like a bit of the fourth of July mixed into Christmas. Perfect! After you popped them, our crackers had little whistles, cheesy jokes, and crowns inside. The whistles were numbered and came with sheets that told you how to play Christmas songs on them. That was exciting. We didn't sound great, but it was Christmas cheery.

The little girls went to bed so that Santa could come as soon as we got home, and then my Madre and I went to Midnight Mass at the Catholic church near our house. My Grandma has told me about how Midnight Mass was such an important part of her Christmas celebrations, so that was special to me. On the way there, my mom was saying, "We're just barely on time, so we'll probably have to stand in the back." I was like, "How many Catholics can we have in Layton?" But moms are always right. Their chapel was about four times bigger than ours is, and it was completely packed. We did get to sit down, though. I loved walking into the church and having the deacons open the doors for us and say, "Merry Christmas!" It had only been Christmas for about ten seconds, and I love the idea of celebrating immediately! There was a perfect Christmas spirit in the chapel as everyone sang and prayed together. When we got home at about 1:30, I really scared myself going in to Abbie's room to get Rachel's Justin cut-out so I could put it up by the tree. I knew it was in there and that I was getting it, and I still jumped when I saw it in the dark. And then I hit Zoe (the cat) in the head with it. That thing is going to be the death of me.

 Actual Christmas

The little girls literarally dragged me out of bed at about 8:10 in the morn. We are not one of those families that wakes up at four on Christmas, thank goodness for me. I am usually the last one up, and this year was no different. Unfortunately, I slept through the traditional qutoting of Harry Potter when we first see the gift pile: "I've got...presents?" Dad made scones for breakfast and we emptied our stockings. We went to church before opening anything else. That was very brave of the smaller children, I thought. Half our family sang in the choir, including me, even though I was obviously only there for like two rehearsals. I just really wanted to be extra involved in Christmas!

We didn't start opening presents until about 12:30, so we didn't finish until about 3:30. Weird! We even took a break in the middle for eating. That was actually me; I made everyone stop so I could cook some chimis. But let it be known that Rachel originally wanted us to take a half an hour break between every round of presents so that it would last longer. We would still be opening presents right now if we had done that. Santa was very generous to me; he brought me a new mp3 player, all 8 of the Harry Potter movies, a nice new practice suit for swimming, a cozy Beatles blanket, the book lovers' edition of Scrabble, a heaping pile of books, music, clothes, and other little treasures. My Beatles blanket was the first gift I played with, because as soon as we finished opening presents I fell asleep. Lame, I know, but I definitely woke up about an hour later to play all our new games.

Garrett called at about 8 that night. I was in the middle of singing a duet with Lauren on our new Sing-It Wii game, so I made Rachel answer it so that we wouldn't lose. About three seconds later, while she was explaining to him that I was busy singing, I was like, what am I doing? and I ran to my phone. This was the fourth time I have talked to Garrett since he's been gone, if you include the airport call, and every time before he calls I get nervous thinking that we will have nothing to talk about and we'll both be awkward and uncomfortable. I am wrong every time. Especially this time, I was thinking, "Okay, this time it for sure will be weird, because it's the longest we've gone without talking and we haven't even been writing that much. Things are definitely different this time." But I was still wrong! Even after 18.5 months of mission we were still able to make each other laugh as much as we always have. Thanks to the generosity and trust of his mission president, we talked for about two and a half hours and never ran out of things to say. So that was a pretty decent happy ending for the day.

 Christmas Music Night

The day after Christmas, we held a Christmas music party at our house for my mom's family. We gathered round the pianos and guitars and sang together, as well as had some performances. I have a very talented family. My contribution wasn't as serious as some others - Abbie and I graced the group with the Adam Sandler Hanukah Song while Lauren played it on the guitar. Although, Abbie and I did also sing a normal song called "Christ Child", so I guess we are just that versitile. Janie performed her dance recital number, "Sleigh Ride," and my mom played "Away in the Manger" on her flute while we sang. My cousins did some lovely things with their guitars and voices, like "Still, Still, Still." As always, good food was involved (thanks Grandma, for taking my clam chowder request!), more presents, (please note my Uncle David opening the singing gondelier we got him for his pool, above) as well as a game of Oodles. I thought it was a successful Boxing Day evening!

 I loved all the holidaying that went on this Christmas week, and now I'm ready to find something epic to do for New Year's. Today, I started filling in the book of lists I got for Christmas. It's called, Listography: My Future and All I Plan To Do in Lists. (Santa knows me fairly well.) It has TONS of lists to fill in, from "Museums to Visit" to "Situations I'd Like to Avoid." It even has a list called, "Other Lists I'd Like to Make." So, filling in that book has gotten me into a goal-oriented, future-planning mood, perfect for New Year's! I'm excited to spend time with friends and family this week, as we have out-of-state relatives around. Tonight we all went to the fun center and played about 8 games of laser tag, glow-in-the-dark mini golf, bowling, and trampoline jumping. Even though I lost just about every game of everything, the future is looking bright! It glows in the dark, so to speak.

Happy Holidays, everyone, and here's to a bright 2012!