Thank you, Santa. What a strange experience. I started the season off with a bang. Since my birthday is on the fifteenth of December, my family is forbidden from even thinking about Christmas until after my birthday. This year, since we were in a new house and I was not working, I decided we would go all out and actually have the tree up before the 23rd. I also was hell-bent on having Christmas lights up this year. Jared spent several hours putting the lights up, he made sure they worked before he put them up, we went to turn them on, and...no switch. Yes, there is a Christmas switch, but we couldn't find it. I gave up. But the lights were up. Thanks Jared:)
I don't want to be a downer, but most years I dreaded Christmas. It seemed like I never was able to do any shopping until a few days before Christmas. We would get a tree and it would sit there for a few days til one of the kids snapped and decorated it. I would do a bunch of shopping and then I would have to stay up all night getting things ready, wake at the crack of dawn, open presents, sleep all day, and then go back to work. It wasn't much fun. Where was Jared during all this? He has the same philosophy about wrapping presents that he does about making his bed. Why bother. One year I asked him to wrap the presents and I came home to a bunch of garbage bags stapled shut. We just don't go there anymore. This year was different. Our family shopped and wrapped and sang Christmas songs all season. We watched a bunch of Christmas movies and made candy for neighbor gifts. It was the most wonderful time of the year. Since Santa didn't have to come in at the last minute to do clean up, he was able to do some fun things like send the kids on a scavenger hunt and leave fun notes for everyone. It was magical. We were actually able to sit as a family and listen to the First Presidency Message. We were able to read about the birth of Christ. We were a normal family for a brief and beautiful moment.
And then it was over.
There is this unfortunate period of time I have discovered that is the week between Christmas and New Years. I finally live in a neighborhood where my kids can play during this time, they all had new bikes. Nothing could ruin it...but rain. Yes, it rained here for five days straight. It even snowed once or twice. Yikes. We don't do snow here.
Our wonderful neighbors planned a New Years party and since Mary was going to babysit for about fourteen kids, we decided to have a kid party at our house. As we cleaned up our house and put away the decorations, Mary made a discovery. The Christmas switch. I couldn't believe it! We turned the lights on just in time for New Years.
So here we are. The kids went back to school today. It was back to just me and Ringo hanging out. Everything is put away and back to normal. It may be over, but I will never forget my hands on Christmas.
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