Holiday rundown

Wow. We are already 10 days into January. Not really sure how that happened.

We really enjoyed the holidays. Zack's family came to stay with us and we did a ton of fun stuff. I won't give you a detailed play by play, but here is a brief rundown.

-Dec. 24th-- I was off work so we worked all day at home to prepare for the arrival of Zack's parents and sisters. They arrived in the evening.

-Dec. 25th-- We slept in and then opened presents. Sam (Zack's brother) called from France. We had a quiet, warm, relaxing day.

-Dec. 26th-- We went to church. It started to snow right around when church was ending. We stayed in the rest of the day and watched the snow storm from the comfort of our warm apartment.

-Dec. 27th-- We finally decided to brave the weather. It had stopped snowing but it was cold and there was plenty of snow. We went to lunch at Reading Terminal Market, took a tour of City Hall (cool!), saw the light show and Dickens Village at Macy's, saw the light show at the Comcast Center, ate some dinner at Maggiano's, and polished off the evening with Blue Man Group (um... so, so fun). Phew!

-Dec. 28th-- We checked out the President's House, a new display outside the Liberty Bell pavilion about the house where George Washington and John Adams lived during their presidencies. We also saw the new Museum of American Jewish History, which was very well done.

-Dec. 29th-- I worked and then put away all the Christmas decorations while Zack and his fam went to Washington DC.

-Dec. 30th-- Zack's sisters flew home. I worked. Zack and his parents went to see Edgar Allen Poe's house.

-Dec. 31st-- We went to the Camden aquarium, then went and ate fish at Red Lobster. Yum! I went to bed early (had to get up at 5:45 the next day). Z came and woke me up at midnight. I listened to fireworks from my bed then drifted back to sleep.

-Jan. 1st-- I worked. Z and parents went shopping and relaxed.

-Jan. 2nd-- I worked while Z and his parents went to church.

-Jan. 3rd-- We all went to Atlantic City. It was cold and very strange to see snow on the beach. We did some shopping, walked on the boardwalk, checked out the insides of some of the hotel/casinos.

-Jan. 4th-- I worked. Z's parents went home.

So you can see why Z's family had to come to us. I guess that's one of the downsides of being a nurse is that someone has to be there during the holidays, nights, and weekends. So I worked a lot. But we also had a lot of fun and very much enjoyed having them to visit. I'm sad the holidays are over because now we enter the long and dreary stretch of winter that I just hate. But there's always stuff to look forward to-- Valentine's Day, Florida in March, going to Utah for my brother's pre-mission talk in church. I think 2011 is going to be a great year for us.

A Christmas outing

We so enjoy Philadelphia at Christmas. A few weeks ago, we went out with the Becks to check out some of the holiday sights. We walked around the Christmas village near City Hall.

We watched the light show at Macy's. It was crowded, but I think it was the funnest time I have ever had seeing it because we got to see it with a little kid. Oliver was just darling. He kept saying "stars" any time he saw snowflakes, he said "bugs" when the sugar plum fairy lights came on, and he waved at the santa lights. Too cute. We also walked through the Dicken's Village. Oliver got a little nervous at the Ghost of Christmas Past part. And we saw the show at the Comcast center. All in all, a fun night out on the town. Then we came home and Oliver got to open his Christmas present from us.

Isn't he just adorable? And he LOVES cars.

We're so happy to have the Becks as friends.

Christmas

Thanks for sharing your favorite Christmas memories/traditions.

Natalie said:

From my childhood, some of my favorite traditions were based on our parties with our huge extended family - the Christmas Eve gathering, with games and food, lots of singing, and the inevitable, highly anticipated visit from Santa - the Christmas morning re-gathering for breakfast. Good times.

A classic is getting new PJs on Christmas Eve.
Rob and I have celebrated a few on our own, and some of our traditions now are pretty good - we make a delicious meal of rotisserie chicken, loaded mashed potatoes, and stuffed mushrooms, and read parts of A Christmas Carol together, and burn a cinnamon candle. It's nice. :)

From Preethi:

Childhood - cooking Thanksgiving dinner while listening to the first strains of Christmas music, and putting up decorations the next day.

Adult life - participating in Handel's Messiah.

Ellen said:

This may seem strange, but one of my favorite things about Christmas is how we open gifts. This is the scenario: Oldest person (dad) goes under the tree and picks a gift for anyone, that person opens their gift and ohhs and awws along with everyone else and thanks the giver, second oldest person (mom) goes under the tree and picks a gift for someone, that person opens their gift and gushes all over it and hugs the giver, 3rd oldest person goes under the tree and so on and so on and so on until all the gifts are unwrapped, viewed and played with. It can take hours to open presents, sometimes it is even stopped for breakfast inbetween and than back to the gift giving. I love seeing the smiles on the faces of people I give gifts to.

Brittney shared this:

We always got PJs from my mom that she made on Christmas eve and we have gone up to my grandma's house in Logan on Christmas Eve for a family get together and sing-a-long for as long as I can remember. Both have always been fun.

My mom said:

One of my favorites is going to grandma's house and having Tom and Jerry's. I loved seeing my cousins and spending time with family. I still love to go to my mom's and continue this tradition. Love you. Hate the new tradition of you not being here at Christmas.

And from my mom-in-law:

I love reading the Christmas story together upstairs and praying together before going downstairs to open presents on Christmas morning. I love the corny picture we take of everyone coming down the stairs in their pajamas.

This year, I'm going to love being in Philadelphia with you two, having everyone together when Sam calls from France!

It was fun to hear from you all.

And now for a few of my own favorites.

We have always done those advent calendar thingys, where you eat a piece of chocolate every day in December until Christmas. On that same note, my mom has this calendar that has a little mouse that you can move each day to count down until Christmas. When we were kids, we used to fight over who got to move the mouse.

Bing Crosby! Zack doesn't quite get this one, but for me, nothing says Christmas like sitting by the tree looking at the lights and listening to a little Bing. We listened to him growing up and it just stuck.

On Christmas Eve, we used to always go to my great-grandma's house. There were always a ton of relatives there. Many of them I didn't really even know-- only saw them that 1 time every year. Great-grandma was known for getting us weird/random presents. It was so thoughtful of her to get something for every single one of her great grandchildren but it was still always kind of a running joke. Then we would go to my grandma's and have a family party with all my aunts and uncles and cousins. The kids would each get a little stack of presents, we would count down 3-2-1 and then everyone would rip open their gifts in a big frenzy. Often we would get similar gifts as our cousins. One example would be pajamas in different colors. We loved that. Some years we had a talent show too. Good times.

Cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas.

When we were younger, our parents began the tradition of giving us an ornament each year that represented the year in some way. Examples: I have a Peter Pan ornament from the year we did that musical in high school. I have a Barbie ornament from the year I decided I was a princess and redecorated my room all in pink (and, in the interest of full disclosure, and lest you think this happened when I was a small girl, I guess I should include that I was probably 16 or 17 years old at that time). I have a Statue of Liberty ornament from the year my family vacationed in New York. And so on. Zack and I have continued that tradition, with some variation. We collect ornaments when we go on vacation. Sometimes we get one to represent the year, sometimes we get more. It just depends. We also get ornaments to represent some notable events in our lives (such as the Phillies winning the World Series a couple years ago). It is very fun/sentimental to decorate the tree as we reminisce.

I imagine I will not be blogging much in the next 2 weeks or so as I will have family staying with me, and I will still be working a lot. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. I'll be back in 2011.

Halloween newsletter

Well, the end of the year is approaching, which means that the entries from this past year will soon become a book. I know I am a little late on this but I wanted to throw in a scan of our Halloween letter for the year. If you didn't get one, feel free to read it. If you did, then I guess this post is mostly for my own sake. Sorry it's such a crappy scan. Just click on the image to enlarge it.

Let's hear from my 2 readers

Hey guys. Share a comment about a favorite Christmas tradition or memory. I will be posting some of my own later, but it'll be nice to get some input from someone more interesting than I.

A mistake

Have you ever done something really stupid? Something that seemed to make perfect sense at the time, but in retrospect, you wonder what in the heck you were thinking? Something that you later realized was just flat out wrong? Well, I did one of those things. And it took me a couple days to really realize the magnitude of what I had done. But when I did realize, I was enveloped with guilt. I didn't want to try and fix it. Some time had passed and I realized that the passing of time would only make it all the more awful to fix. So I tried to rationalize what I did. I really tried. And maybe it worked for a while, but ultimately it failed. I spent the entirety of my day after work yesterday thinking about what I had done. Seriously, the whole day. I thought about it while we watched TV. I thought about it while we played games with friends. I thought about it while I was trying to sleep. And I struggled to sleep. I couldn't get rid of the feeling. Even if it wasn't at the direct forefront of my mind, it was sitting in the pit of my stomach. I felt it the whole time. I spent a lot of time worrying about what would happen if I fessed up. I thought about what people would think of me. I thought about what kind of trouble I would get in. And I was terrified. I hated the feeling. But after a while, I made up my mind. I realized that all of that would pass. People might think ill of me for a while. I might even lose my job. But in a few days or weeks or months or years, all that would just be a memory. On the other hand, if I didn't come clean about it, I would carry that with me forever, knowing that I didn't have the courage to do the right thing when it was hardest. And I knew that would follow me even beyond this life. So, when I got to work this morning, I pulled my supervisor aside, and I told her what happened. It was hard. I was shaking. I could tell me voice was ultra high pitched. I was sure I was going to cry. Luckily I didn't, but I was on the verge of tears the whole time. I really was sorry. And I really knew I hadn't done the right thing. And I was willing to accept whatever consequences there were to make it right. Luckily, my supervisor is actually a really nice lady and she handled the whole thing in such a professional way. She helped me know what to do to make it right, at least as much as I could by that point. She never criticized me or treated me poorly. She didn't even penalize me (maybe that'll come later. Maybe she was too worried about doing so when I was so hysterical). For the rest of the day, I felt like I had an IDIOT sign pinned to my forehead. Probably most of the people I interacted with at work today don't know what happened. Probably some of them never will, but I still felt dumb. Embarrassed. Alone. But you know what I didn't feel? That pit that had moved into my stomach seemingly permanently yesterday. I really did feel a burden lifted right off me. I still regret what I did. I still feel ultra dumb about it. I still wonder what was going through my head at that moment. And it was hard to confess. It is going to be hard to know that my coworkers know that I did such a stupid thing. None of that was, is, or is going to be easier than I had anticipated while I was trying to rationalize away my actions. But at least now I can go through it all with my conscience a little clearer.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving passed quietly around here. I had to work, which is was unfortunate but necessary. Work was fine. Not a very tough day. A lot of my residents went out with family, which was nice for them I hope. When I got home, my husband had prepared a full Thanksgiving meal just for me (oh, and I guess for himself also). Isn't he just a sweetie? Since his first attempt at turkey brining didn't go so well last year, he was determined to try again this year and it was a smashing success. That was one delicious bird. Here he is making the first slice.

After dinner, we scoped out the ads for Black Friday and we put up our Christmas decorations. Since it is officially acceptable to listen to Christmas music after Thanksgiving dinner, we put on some tunes. Zack even tolerated some Bing Crosby to humor me. Our apartment now looks (and smells) very festive. Here's Zack placing the Liberty Bell on top of our tree.

Sadly, our Philly Phanatic ornament got broken while we were putting the ornaments on the tree. His nose popped off when he fell on the ground.

Never fear though. We bought a new one just like him the next day at the mall.

I had to work on Black Friday also, but Zack got up early to take me to work and then he got some of our Christmas shopping done. He even did my Rite Aid bargain shopping, coupons and all. Can I just say that I love Black Friday at the drug stores. We made a HAUL! Tons and tons of stuff for free. After work, he let me get in on the shopping fun. We went up to the outlet mall and walked through the entire thing (it's huge). We didn't really buy much but we enjoyed just walking and talking and people watching. I had a 3 day weekend, and we mostly just took it easy. We ran errands, took naps, I cleaned up the house (amazing what a huge dinner and a million store ads can do to our little apartment), and put the finishing touches on the Christmas decorations. It's back to work again tomorrow, but I do feel a little recharged and a lot more in the holiday mood. Hopefully we can have more family-filled Thanksgivings in the future, but I enjoyed our little celebration this year and I am thankful for my husband for always being so awesome and for putting so much work into a delicious dinner. You're the best babe.