Our Winter Holiday Celebrations- 2012

Christmas time is always a conundrum to me. I never know how to feel or what to do. The world expects me to put up a tree in my living room and cover the stem of the tree with presents. I'm supposed to bake a ham or a roast or something and eat pie and drink hot cocoa until I turn into a cocoa bean. I don't really know what the world is celebrating on Christmas anymore. Is it food? Is it international-you're-going-broke-day? If I had my way, I would wake up on Christmas morning to a warm house and the sound of a crackling fire and the smell of home made cinnamon rolls in the oven. I would go to church and sing a few songs about Jesus and about his birth under that bright star. Yes, I would sip hot cocoa all day. I would sip away under a blanket, with music playing, bored games going, and my family sharing stories. There would be no trees, there would be no presents, there would be no expensive plane tickets so my whole family could be together without selling any body parts to do so. If I had it my way, there would be no commercials for sales... only for the price of things to go down the day after Christmas anyway. People would put lights on their houses and nativity scenes in their front yards instead of disturbing 13 foot tall blow-up Santa.

I am the Grinch, but I don't feel like my reasons are so bad.

My Christmas celebration this year was weird. The weekend before Christmas, we went to Payson and tried to get together with our families to over eat and exchange presents. We did this, but it wasn't the whole family by any means. Sadly, with a large family, I fear there will be many more years celebrating the holidays after this one. It was nice. It was way too quick, but there was lots of delicious food and lots of laughter. You know I love family time!

 Silas and his Dad. Don't they look like the same person? It's pretty eerie.

 Buggy being buggy.

 Sweet, sweet, baby Calvin

 My beautiful mama

This one here is a photo of us with our "family" from the SCA. We all have SUCH a good time together. I really enjoy being around these people. They're giving, loving, kind, funny, and so fun to be around. Thanks again to Maureen, Delphia, and Christopher for throwing such a lovely Christmas party. Can't wait to get together with these peeps real soon.

Christmas eve I worked at 9 am until 5. Not too big of a deal, but it felt like the longest day of my life. When I got home, I remembered Dugan was staying in Phoenix for the night because I was working on Christmas and I told him not to just sit at home alone. I lit a fire, made some hot chai tea, and snuggled up on the couch with my kitty for the night. Christmas eve= success.

Christmas morning was weird because it was the first time in my entire life I had ever woken up alone in my house. It didn't feel like Christmas day. There was no word of Santa, the fire had burnt out, and I even woke up with a bit of a headache. The last thing I wanted to do was go to work but the show must go on. I got ready for work, my honey came home to quick open up our presents from each other before I had to go to work, and I worked a 12 hour shift. Not doing that again. People watching movies is just not that important to me. I was so happy to be greeted by Rachel coming home when I was on my break- cherry ontop of my ice cream let me tell you. 

NEW YEARS:

Ok. This is a little bit of a difficult thing to write about without sounding sour or bitter or any other adjectives that have to do with taste. So I will just spit it out (haha pun). Invited a lot of people over for New Years party at my place, people had other things going on. Whatever. 9 people came, and I am so grateful for those 9 people. It's about a 4th of the people I had expected to come and about an 8th of the amount of people I invited. I was so very worried that no one was going to come because 2 and a half hours after the start time, no one had showed up. BUT, all was well by the end of the night. We had friends over, eating all of the snacks I made and drinking the drinks that were available. Thank you to the people who were able to make it here. You are all terrific.

My goals for the year are as follows. I will not look at the bad in the good, but will instead look for good in the bad. I will deal with my emotions better and stop stressing over little things. I will pray more often. I will read a book each month.(and write down my thoughts on them). I will continue to work on a healthy life style- diet, exercise, and attitude.

Happy new year everyone. I hope your 2013 is spectacular. I know mine will be! It will be full of:

Reading good books

Taking more classes and PASSING THEM

Finding a house with a backyard and more storage space and happily move into it.

Working out.

...

there's probably a lot more I could put on this list, but I wont spoil it for you. I would have nothing to write about later.

:)