December 24th couldn't have come any faster.  It seemed like finals had just ended it wasn't nearly cold enough, but before we knew it, Uncle Dave's family came knocking at our door for Christmas Eve dinner.   We dined at the heirloom table with the traditional ham, funeral potatoes, homemade rolls and reunion salad.  The kids performed a Nativity skit {Wow, they are different than me, Kendall, Rachel, and Paige at that age.  While we argued over who got to be Mary and tried to put in our best abilities with singing and everything, they fought over who got to be the sheep, and then Adam wouldn't quit whining about how we wouldn't let him paraphrase Luke 2.  When he accidentily stepped on Megan's foot, we thought that she was pretending to give birth before we realized that she wasn't acting.} and we, like every year, opened up and put on brandnew PJs.
That night, Bryan and I videochatted so we could open our presents together.  I gave him tickets to see the Imagine Dragons concert, and he gave me a beautiful bracelet with my first initial and a frame with fifteen of our cutest pictures {that my mother has since been showing off to all of her lady friends to gawk over}.  Totes adorbs?  Yes!  Is this something I am definitely gonna have to keep for the future to gaze at whenever I'm feeling lonely?  M-hmmm, you betcha!  Thank you honey!
  Oh, and we can't forget how one of those clumsy reindeer accidentily kicked Sophie's window!  Haha.
  Christmas morning, my door flew open at 6 AM sharp.  I was quite disoriented, and it took my awhile to realize why the heck Olivia had was jittering at my bedside.  But we all gathered at the stairs for the traditional Christmas morning photo, gave Dad the time to set up the camcorder, and then the kids booked it to the living room to see what Santa brought.  I was very happy to get some art supplies {the fin-tip pen allows some of my new pieces to look more comicbook-ish, which is really cool!}, combat boots and flipflops {they're a few inches tall, so they'll give me some height! my mom told me excitedly}, music, a purse {the first one that isn't hand-me-down from  my mother, LOL}, a WillowTree Nativity set for my collection, and some pretty Arizona turquoise earrings.  Thank you!
        We met up at the cousins' house for a yummy breakfast, and then spent of the rest of the day watching movies and, for me, drawing.  I don't think we got out of our jammies once the whole day.
          Kendall and I realized that she officially has no more Christmases left at home, and I have only one, and then we got to chat about our boyfriends-- it's been two months since her Curt left for his mission in the Philippines.  She is seriously so adorable when she talks about how she hopes it works out between them and how, if it does, they can have a summer wedding.  She misses him like crazy, which is so sad and cute and makes me dread my BF leaving in less than a year-and-a-half.  But man, what's crazy is to realize how much time has flown.  How long ago was it that Kendall told us that she planned on going to BYU medschool and being too busy to get married until she was "at least 25?"  In four months the beautiful genius blondie who has known me since she was five-months old is graduating high school and going to Beret at ASU.  THIS GIRL IS TALKING TO ME ABOUT GETTING MARRIED IN JUST 2.5 YEARS & I CAN PICTURE MYSELF GETTING MARRIED JUST AS EASILY.  What has happened to us little girls who wore princess gowns in cardboard castles and were afraid that the cucumber masks said to "make a woman look younger" that we put on each other would make us look like toddlers again? The days have flown.
        Christmas is a beautiful season.  Even if it was so hectic with school and gift-gathering, I can never forget the real reason for the holidays. It is for the miracle birth of a person who changed the course of the heavens and earth forever.  Because of Him, this wonderfully family of mine has to put up with me forever and ever and ever.  And I am so grateful for that.