Christmas 09

Well Friends. Christmas has come and gone. I can't believe it.
It was a pretty darn good Christmas at our house this year. The only bummer part is that I didn't even spend a full 24 hours with my family. I had to work on Christmas eve. Big bummer. Luckily I made it to my Grandpa Paulsen's house for the last five minutes of dinner. It was good seeing some of the Paulsen's again. We don't get to see one another nearly enough. We sang Christmas carols and read Luke. Then my grandpa talked about my grandma and how much he missed her and can't wait to be with her again. He told us all that we better not cry when he dies because he will be the happiest man that ever existed. It is so precious to me how much he loves his sweetheart. It makes my heart ache how much he misses her though.
After that we opened presents and chatted and started debates and teasing and all that fun family stuff.
So my family headed home to good old Fruit Heights and we opened up our pajamas. And oh my! Our pajamas were totally freaking amazing this year! We all had matchy matchy ones. They are red flannel boy pants (yay for the length!) and bright red Elmo face shirts. That's right, I said Elmo! They are ridiculously cool. We all got in our pj's and took pictures of course. They are on Cassie's camera but if I get a chance I will steal them from her and post them on here. My family is just too cool. So then my dad got too excited to give my mom his present (as always) and gave it to her that night instead of waiting until morning. He surprised her with a vacation to Cancun. She was so excited! My parents are so cute.
So then my parents went to bed and the siblings stayed up and watched The Grinch. Classic. My favorite line: "Fetch the stick Max! Ha! There is no stick. I'm smarter."

So then we come to Christmas morning.
Zach is, of course, the first one up. He wakes me and Cassie up and then we have to wake up Jessica because Zach is scared of her in the mornings. ha ha. Luckily Zach is a teenager now and likes to sleep in later than he usually does. Instead of the 3 or 4 in the morning, he woke up at 7. Yay for getting older! =) So then the tearing through wrapping paper madness begins. My mom is of course worrying about everything and saying "everything is take-back-able" and worried that we didn't get enough, when really we got insanely spoiled! It must be hard to be the mom on Christmas day. ha. I love her.
My favorite gift this year was a new car stereo for Buzz, an ipod, and the complete Friends series, which I have been watching non stop ever since. LOVE it!
Christmas day we drove to Preston. I drove separately because I had to work the next day and saw no point in driving from fruit heights to preston to fruit heights to logan. My mom came with me and we listened to Relient K's Christmas album (which is amazing by the way) and then we had a really good spiritual talk on Christ and his life and it totally put me in the Christmas mood.
Hanging out in Preston with my Butt cousins was way fun. Kailey got a new game called Curses and it was played a lot. That game is freaking hilarious! I totally want it now! We had an excellent dinner.... my grandma is an amazing cook.... and I finally got my craving of funeral potatoes taken care of... YUM!
After all the merriment I drove back to Logan and watched Friends and played my new Wii Game which is way way fun. I wasn't necessarily thrilled to be by myself the entire night, well, the entire weekend really, but that's the life you live when you work crappy retail jobs as a college student. I am the only one here in my entire building and it's just a little creepy. I wish I was home with my fam but I am just thankful I at least got the little time with them that I did. I don't know why I feel it so strongly this year more than ever, but I truly love my family so much and am so grateful for them. When life gets tough, they are the people that I want standing in my corner and backing me up. They are amazing people and even though we have many issues, way too much drama, and a little fighting here and there, there is a lot of love in my family and support of one another.