Man, I hate to say it, but I'm kindof glad that Christmas is over. Last night I was feeling like we could finally move on with the rest of life now that the Christmas stuff is done. Too bad, we still have parties this week, and it's not REALLY over just yet. It is close though. :)
Christmas Eve was awesome. After leaving work early, we packed a little, drove in the snow and blizzardness to Lindon for the traditional Fugal Christmas. We got there early, and Josh vanished with Randy and they were nowhere to be found. I knew they left, and I could tell it was a secret where they were, so I pretended to be clueless, and really I was. It was funny because the last time Josh disappeared with one of my family members at my house, he was asking my parents if we could get married. No such news this time. When he got back he told me Katy was getting a piano for Christmas so he was helping Randy and his brother move it into their apartment. Sooo cool!
Of course the festivities started with food. We had soup and bread bowls, jello salad, veggie tray, etc. We went downstairs for the real party, where we played some games (fruit basket, that-one-whack-you-if-you-can't-think-of-it game, the sign passing game, and others like it. My family is funny, and we all have our strengths. I'm REAL bad at the sign game. Dallin and Garret didn't quite grasp the concept of fruitbasket (they just kept saying "strawberry and banana" over and over again and not even trying for someone else's seat), and for some reason Katy and Randy couldn't remember to say somebody else's name before sitting down and got whacked more than they'd like.
Grandma and Grandpa went upstairs with the grandkids to prepare for a nativity while the rest of us wrote a really bad Christmas poem. When the grandkids came downstairs, the whole room burst out in oooohs and awwwwws. Those kids were easily the cutest nativity we've ever seen. Tyler (2 yrs) came down dressed like Joseph, Ryann (1 yr) as Mary, and Dallin (5 yrs) and Garret as the wise men. The amazing Garret (7 yrs) managed to recite all of the Christmas story from Luke 2 (he has an incredible memory!) It was so precious. I hope the pictures turned out, I haven't had a chance to load them on the computer yet, but will post them as soon as I do. It was awesome.
Then we called my brother and his family in Seattle to open presents over the phone. The kids all did their gift exchange, which went quite well. I think everybody was very happy! Nathan got us a printer router, and promised to set it up for us in our new house, which will be SOO nice! It means we can print wirelessly from our laptops, and that will be amazing. I'm excited for that. We also got our Fontanini pieces, which was a town well this year. It's beautiful, I truly love it!
After presents we sang carols, read stories, (Humphrey's First Christmas was this year's title). BreAnne and mom played a Christmas Cannon on the harp and piano respectively. It was beautiful. Since Bre had her harp at mom's house, she taught me how to play it afterward, it's SOO beautiful! And hard. :) I'm amazed by people that can do it, every time I looked up to see the music, the strings moved under my fingers. Ha ha. I guess I won't pursue a career in harping anytime soon.
We ventured home for our own Christmas Eve traditions (which this year included falling into bed and falling asleep in approximately 2.3 seconds).
Christmas morning Josh woke up at 4:30 AM. No that is not a typo, my husband seriously wanted to open presents at 4-dark:30. I told him if he wanted to go out to the car to get my camera, then we could open presents. Needless to say we slept in until 7:00. :)
I surprised Josh with a game (he knew he'd get a game because it's him, but he didn't know WHICH game.....) and he surprised me with the food processor to my Bosch! I'm so excited!!! I can slice, dice, shred and everything, I'm stoked. He's amazing, and I love him. We also got the love sac, and the sounds system for the new house. We were spoiled!
Since he got a game, he opted to play the game before heading to his parents, which made us late, but we had fun anyway. We went over there, and got spoiled even more. Josh's mom gave me card making stuff, and a cuttlebug, and he got a cordless drill and stuff. His grandma gave us a new game, and his sister gave us a bunch of stuff too. I got the most high tech tea kettle I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't burn it up if I tried. It's red and cute. Santa definitely found us this year. It was great.
Misty suggested feeding the homeless at 1:00. They said they normally serve until 2:00, so we figured we'd go at 1 and see what we could do. When we got there though, they were cleaning up. So, we helped with that, which was still cool. We were only there for 15 minutes before heading to Grandma B's. After everything was cleaned up, we all stood in a circle and had a prayer together. The guy saying the prayer told us that just before we got there, they only had 4 people to clean everything up, so we were an answer to their prayer. We kinda felt dumb before that because there wasn't much to do, but that made me feel better about it. I was thinking that you never really know how helpful something small is. We thought our trip up was pointless because we just washed off a few tables and folded them up, but to the people who had been there since early in the morning, it was probably a relief to not have to scrape the ice off all the tables for another hour. That was warm and fuzzy.
After the festivities at Grandma's we went to the Egbert's house. We played Transformers Risk and Josh and I (the Autobots) kicked trash! :) It was fun. We headed back to the Reilley's to play a quick game and pick up Josh's coat and headed home again. We cleaned up the Christmas mess that was everywhere. Treats from the neighbors, gifts from the day, and cooking pans were taking over the kitchen and living room. We were glad to put things where they actually belong! We packed some more stuff, and watched Finding Nemo (thank you Santa!) while we fell asleep on our love sac. :)
It was a fantastic Christmas. We saw family, hung out, played games, watched a movie, did some small service, spent time alone, and even got things done. Now that it's over, we have to get on top of things and get ourselves ready to move on Friday!
*Pictures of all of the festivities coming soon.*
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