The Holiday Season

I swear that we had told my parents that we were spending the night at their house for Christmas. I know we did!
So its Christmas Eve and me and Kyle pack up our christmas pajamas and our stocking stuffers and our presents to each other (I was dying to give Kyle his!) and head to my parents.
This is a typical Christmas at my parents house (the way we have always done things):
1. Christmas Adam (12/23) - The whole family sleeps under the Christmas tree. I guess this is actually a newer tradition but I love doing it!
2. Christmas Eve we prepare our Ham dinner. MmmMMMmmMMmMmm!! I LOVE HAM. we have ham, potatoes, pistachio salad, green bean cassarole, rolls and sparkling cider. We eat our Christmas dinner on the eve because Christmas is the one day a year that we make no plans and have no obligations and i'm pretty sure my mom hasn't left the house on Christmas day in over ten years.
3. After dinner we open our Christmas pajamas! We put them on and then we have a fashion show for each other. Last year my mom took pictures of us modeling them and it was super fun and pretty legit.
4. Its not cold in Arizona but we pretend it is and bundle up in our big green van with hot chocolate and we drive around to see Christmas lights while singing Christmas songs! My mom is such a good sport. You see she is very musically inclined and growing up she always imagined her future family would be the next Osmonds... Well, we're not that bad of singers but definitely not close to the Osmonds. So we sing our little hearts out and have a great time!
5. We come home and my dad reads us The Grinch! And I wish everyone could sit in on this because it is HILARIOUS! I love my father... he's wonderful at reading this! Then my mom reads us The Night Before Christmas which she practically has memorized! and then she reads to us the real Christmas story which is such a fabulous way to end the evening. A reminder of the real reason for the season, our Savior.
6. Then its off to bed! When I was younger we never slept through the night... now I do. but don't worry, we never sleep in past 5:30 or 6:00.
7. Us kids wake up eachother and peak at our presents!
8. We wake up mom and dad! We sing to them, jump in bed with them, tickle their feet, etc.
9. We go down and take some pictures of the set up and then we each sit by our stockings (which are hand made by my dear mother) Then we assign someone to be 'Santa'
10. We open all our presents in different orders/ways each year. We each open a present at the same time and show each other what we just opened. I like doing it this way cause its fun to see what everyone got and show off what I got.
11. Then we make egg muffins and drink egg nog. Then we lay around all day playing with our new things! And each of us gets a movie so we watch our new movies all day.
And by 8:00 we're usually done with presents and breakfast. Some people think we are crazy but I love getting up early. Then we have the whole day to relax and be lazy and spend time together. Its wonderful!
Anyway, back to the whole reason we started this post... we're sitting around at Christmas Eve Dinner and my mom says "You married kids can come over whenever you want tomorrow. We're just doing the same thing we do every year" And I looked at Kyle and then at my sister and said "Mom, we're staying the night. We told you that." She looked at me, then at my dad and they had this look in their faces like 'right. Why on earth would you stay here for your first Christmas together?' And then thats exactly what she said!
Basically, my parents didn't even believe me! but we stayed! and when we blew up an air mattress in my old room, and got in our PJ's they started to believe us.
Christmas was FABULOUS! One I will never ever forget! We woke up... let me refrase that. My sister woke us up... Let me be more specific. Aubree yelled at us at 5:30 in the morning to go peek at our presents! Let the festivities begin!
Me and Kyle got a red wii, Calvin and Hobbes comic books, cologne/perfume, a watch, some wonderful hand wash, and these shoes that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!!! Santa got us $100 in gold coins! It was awesome!
I think one of the coolest parts of the day was my moms present to my dad. She had all of my dads mission pictures (that were on slides) scanned in and she put them on a DVD to music. We got to sit around and watch it together and my dad got to tell us stories from his mission. It was really neat to see who he baptized and hear some of the stories of the himble people of Chile. It helped remind me of my Savior and the love he has for each and every one of us: His children.
For New Years we got to spend the weekend in California with some of Kyles side of the family. Super relaxing! And we went on a date with his aunt and uncle - who are hilarious - and saw Harry Potter - which is sooooo gOOd.
And now for the last two weeks we've been playing our wii and watching stuff on NetFlix.
THE END! =)