Favorite Christmas Memories

As I sit here at work, listening to Christmas music and looking out the window into the dense fog, I reflect on some things that have happened over the past few weeks that I'm so thankful for, and things that I look forward to.

Things I'm thankful for:
- my dear husband, who sticks with me no matter what. He has so much patience. He makes me laugh and smile.

- my mom seems to be doing better. She has actually gotten out of the house, and visited with friends, and she even went to the Christmas Program that FBC Buna put on last week.

- my new little nephew, Nicholas Ryan. What a precious addition he is to the family.

- that God has once again spoken clearly to me about some things in my life. and that He is opening the door again for me to once again sing on the praise team.

- that John and I are trying for baby.



Things I'm looking forward to:
- waking up with John on Christmas morning

- singing Away in a Manger with my dad playing the guitar at the Candelight service Christmas Eve.

- singing with Heaven's Breath at the Candelight service

- leading music Sunday morning (dec. 28) at FBC Buna with one of my dearest friends, Mitch.

- Christmas eve with my family - Singing Christmas Carols, listening to dad play the guitar, hearing the Christmas story, and singing Silent Night, as we all think about my brother Jeremy, and how he used to sing it in German every year.

- refreshing old memories

This year is the first year I've really been in the Christmas Spirit since Jeremy died.

Now...For my favorite Christmas memories...

Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, Jeremy, Dad, and I would always go out to Double S Tree farms, and pick out the perfect Christmas tree that we were going to decorate that year. We'd go get the saw, pick it out, cut it down, and off we went. We'd go back to the house (we even did this after my parents split up), and turn down the lights, and it would begin. Dad would pull out his guitar, and Jeremy and I would begin to decorate the tree. Mom would sit back, listen and watch. We'd string the lights out, find out which ones were working, and which ones weren't. After we strung the lights on the tree, we'd pull out the ornaments. We'd laugh, and cry, and make fun of the poor little angel I made in the third grade. You see, my third grade classroom had a terrible leak in the ceiling, and one day, part of the ceiling collapsed. I'll never forget Mrs. Gerald saying "well, a couple of your Christmas Angels were crushed, but we managed to save them." Of course, mine was crushed, and wet, so the marker smeared, and well...I hope to get a picture of her while at mom's to share. Then there are all the silly little ornaments made of sweet gum balls, and lifesaver wrappers, and popsicle sticks, and then the ultimate ornament. I must preface this with - I AM NOT AN ARTIST. I should not have taken art my freshman year in high school. We made paper mache' ornaments. We blew up mini balloons, and paper mache'd them, and then painted them. My forementioned angel above looks like she came from heaven compared to my paper mache' sorry-excuse-for-an-ornament-made-by-a-14-year-old. :-) It's all caved in on one side, and it looks like I took it to a Mission Friends class and let one of the kids paint it.

It just hasn't been the same since Jeremy died. I took to some of the traditions with decorating my own tree, and still do what I can when I decorate mom's tree. Sadly, the Christmas tree farms in town have all closed, so if we want a real tree, we just go to wal-mart and pick it up. I throw on some Kenny G Christmas music, and decorate by myself.

I'm hoping as each year comes, John and I can start our own Christmas Traditions together, and that just as my parents' traditions have been passed on to me, we can do the same with our future children.

Do you have any favorite Christmas Traditions? I'd love to hear any!

I will post plenty of pictures next weekend when I'm back in San Antonio. In the country, it's hard to get any kind of good internet connection, so this will probably be my last blog for a week or so.

I hope that each of you has a very Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

Here's to a better year in 2009! *clink*


:-)

Thanksgivin' Happenings and More

Ok, so before I start my actual post, I have to tell y'all about something I heard this morning. I made an order with shutterfly and I never recieved my pictures, so I picked up the phone to call them this morning to check on what might have happened. The prompt menu seemed normal enough until i hear "To hear a Pirate read these options, press 6". HA!! And it actually works. You press 6, and you hear all the options read in pirate talk. Too cute. If you wanna hear, call (888) 225-7159.

ok. For my real post -
My Thanksgiving holidays were pretty fun! I got some much needed time off from work, and got my apartment all decorated up. (the first one is kinda hard to see...but all the lights are ours, and you can even see the Christmas Tree through the window. :-) )

Wednesday, John and I decided that we were going to go ahead and get our tree, and get everything decorated because we weren't going to be home on Thanksgiving, and he had to go back to work the next day. Once we picked out our tree, shoved it into the back of the Honda, and got it home, we realized we were a little short on decorations for it. It's a huge tree. Needless to say, John had to make an extra trip back to Target to get more lights.

We went with the LED lights this year. They are beautiful. So vibrant, and the colors are much more true than the regular lights. I have a lighted wreath I used to hang on my house in Houston, and when it's lit up against my LEDs on my patio, it looks so yellow. It's still pretty, though. We seem to be the only ones so far who have done anything. We've seen some other decorations, but I feel like we went all out, compared to anyone else. Maybe I'll take a drive around the complex at some point to see what else is out. Our neighbors have been very complimentary. We did have "bellicide", though. That could have been tragic. We had some bells hanging in the arch of the patio, and when they fell, they hit our neighbor's car. (Our patio is located directly above our neighbor's garage, and they park outside the garage). oops. Thankfully the only evidence was the red glitter everywhere. broke the bells, but no damage to the car, so they'll never know! :-)

That same night before Thanksgiving, my SIL, Kelli asked me if I would help her bake a Carrot Cake. I love to cook, and now that I have space, I was like "Yeah! Come on over!" so, she and her BF Chris came over. John went to the movies with a friend. Kelli, Chris, and I visited for a while, and finally went to HEB about 8:30ish. once again, like in an earlier post, i left my list at home. Thankfully, this time, we were barely out of the complex, so we turned around, picked up the list, and off we went! After our shopping trip, we came home, and started cooking. I got out everything on the list, and made the cake. I also needed to make a squash casserole, so while the cake was baking, I was clearing some space, and when I picked up the flour to put it up, I was like..."Hmmm...I wonder why I pulled this out. I didn't use it. Oh well, guess I didn't need it." WRONG! Kelli and I noticed that the cake was starting to fall, rather than rise. oops! Turns out I DID need the flour. 2 freakin' cups of it. That was the NASTIEST cake ever!! See for yourself. NOT pretty.

Kelli and I were both bummed about it, but I just promised her I would get up the next morning, and make another cake. I almost overslept, but I got up just in time, and made the cake again. This time, I only had 2 eggs, when the recipe called for three, and all the stores were closed. It still came out great! Here's my second attempt.

The actual Thanksgiving festivities were nice. We had about an hour long drive to Devine to go to an Aunt's house. They have about 33 acres of land, so it was a lot of fun to walk around. They have all sorts of trails on the property. Oh, and we visited the 10 foot rattlesnake John's uncle had shot two days before. That sucker was HUGE. I've never seen an actual rattlesnake in person. Calvin had blown it's head off and then cut the rattles off to keep as a keepsake. Or trophy. Oh, did i mention it had 15 rattles? Long rattle! calvin said he was just walking around, and that snake popped it's head up and immediatly started rattling. I would have freaked.

You can find out about my other Thanksgiving Day happening on my other blog.

On another note...At 28 years old, I discovered these. :-)

...and like them a lot.
Don't worry - not gonna get drunk or anything - I think you know me better than that. :-)

Hope y'all had a great Holiday!!