Christmas in my family means many set plans and traditions.  Christmas Eve has always meant driving south to St. Augustine to have dinner with my dad's family and Christmas day has always meant driving to Callahan to visit with my mom's family.  Being that my aunt who usually hosts our Christmas Eve feast got a nasty flu and my mom's family moved to Tennessee, we had to improvise a bit.  Christmas Eve was small, but perfectly cozy and perfectly family-y.

Watching The Amazing Spiderman

   

A hereditary explanation of why I can't take serious pictures. 

I got him Waterboy. 

Christmas Day meant a nice, relaxing day with my mom.  Our only real tradition for Christmas Day is my mom making gorilla bread.  Your arteries have not lived until they have been mutilated by the sugary goodness that is gorilla bread.  Another tradition that is sort of in its infancy is us going to this neighborhood that has some awesome Christmas lights.  It's a bit of a drive, but it is so worth it.  We usually go before Christmas, but we have been a tad busy getting things on my list done.  So, we decided Christmas day night (it makes sense in my head) was probably the only time we could make it there.  Unfortunately, that was the same game plan for everyone else and their mother.  It was a tad crowded, but still awesome nonetheless.

Skypin' the G.

One of the things on my list was to watch at least one season of Friends.  Being that seasons five and six are my favorites, we started with five a few days after I got home and finished it Christmas day night.  Yeah, maybe we're not so traditional in my house.

Labor of Love

So, I know I promised you tales of Disney and End of the World parties, but I have really just been enjoying some family time.

Come December every year, I basically listen to Christmas music nonstop.*  So, I definitely have some favorites.  I heard this song last year for the first time and it is just so beautiful.  A lot of people have lost sight of the "reason for the season."  They post "XMAS" on posters and plaster Santa on their roofs instead of a manger in their yards.  So, it's so refreshing and beautiful to hear a song like this that amazingly reflects the incredible people that raised the Savior of the World (alongside Heavenly Father), the beautiful Mary and the noble Joseph.  This song is just incredibly powerful and I hope you love it as much as I do.

How lucky we are to have had Mary and Joseph in this world so many years ago, full of humility and worthiness to carry and raise the Father's Only Begotten.  How lucky we are Christ was born and walked this earth.  How lucky we are to hold a place in His heart.




*Well, I kind of listen to it all year-round, but I only openly listen to it come December 1st.

Hallmark Card

It's always a bright and shining moment when you're making a snowman on your roommate's car to surprise her and she and her boyfriend walk out of your dorm, thinking someone is trying to hijack her car.

Yes, my beloveds.  It snowed today.  The first real, non-slushy snow.  Not only did it snow today, but it snowed ALL day.  No stops for nothin'.  It was like all my dreams had come true (plus, I saw Brave for the first time, which means all my dreams did come true).  I got hot chocolate mix just as the grocery store was closing and I called my best friend back home.  He described what I was expressing as an "elated rapture" of sorts.  That is exactly what took place.

As previously stated, Christmas is my absolute favorite of the holidays.  It has a magic and a unique beauty to it that no other holidays quite express for me.  The only piece of Christmas that I have never been able to experience, though, has been that wonder that is the floating ice that dances across the sky and makes its way down to earth to cover it with a glistening white blanket; each stitch filled with a gentle joy.  Snow.

(I feel like I just wrote a Hallmark card.)

The only other times I have ever experienced snow have meant slushies of water, but this was different.  This was completely different.

I saw it.  I literally frolicked in it, and -- I promise you -- woodland creatures were singing as I did so.  It was incredible.  I am five years old and it was incredible.  It took everything within me not to plop down and make a snow angel right then and there.

As I stood ankle-deep in snow for an hour or so tonight, just marveling at this heaven-sent wonder, everything was beautiful in the world.  It was illuminated with a comfort.  All was well.

6 Weeks, 3 Days

I love holidays in general by an abnormal amount.  You can usually find me on Valentine's Day wearing blinding amounts of red; my Halloween costume is usually planned about eleven months in advance; and I may not pinch you on St. Patty's day when you're not wearing green, but be prepared for some traumatizing scolding.  Of all the holidays, though, Christmas is my absolute favorite.   I just feel this sense of magic once December roles around and the world is alighted, literally and figuratively.  It's also a celebration of one of my favorite people to ever exist, the Savior of the World.

However, Christmas takes on a whole new meaning this year.  I will have been away from home for six months (HALF A YEAR) almost to the date as I fly in to Jacksonville's airport.  I will be reunited with my childhood, and the best part of my childhood: my best friend, my mom.  I will be reunited with the wonderfully awful humidity and the sounds of the city.  I will be able, for a brief moment in time, to escape from the realities of "growing up" and become the me that I was for seventeen of my eighteen years.  I will be able to see friends and family that I haven't seen for an eternity.  I will be able to hear terrible grammar and be fond of it. I will be able to walk into a real WalMart where I fear for my life.  The street crossing buttons won't be weird and I will have the smell of the sea just a few miles away.

I am living for that day, six weeks and 3 days away, where I will be reunited with home.  My home.