Christmas

I am going to apologize in advance for the somewhat gruesome nature of this post.  If you're squeamish you might want to back out now.  Just sayin'.

But first, here is our lovely tree in all of its crooked-starred glory.  This tree is quite large and took me several trips to the store to get it properly lit.  I was almost ready to take down the tree and pull out our tiny pre-lit tree from last year.  But I persevered and I think it was kind of worth it.

This year we went to Las Cruces for a few days before Christmas.  Sam had to work on Christmas day, so our festivities were moved to Christmas Eve.  All was fine and dandy until Christmas Eve.  Sam had been feeling kinda crummy since he decided to get a cold a few days before, and then decided to have a stomach ache.  We went to Sam's Aunt Linda's house for dinner and Sam kept getting worse.  I knew it was getting serious when he wouldn't even eat the tamales that he has been craving since last Christmas.  So everyone else ate, Sam puked, and we took that as our cue to head home.  On the 3.5 hour drive home he tossed his cookies twice more - once while driving 75 mph down the road, which resulted in a mess on the side of my car.  Needless to say, it would've been nice for him to give me some kind of warning.  After the 2nd incident (for which I was thankfully able to pull over) it was smooth sailing and we got home with no more problems.  We decided to open gifts that night instead of waiting until Sam got home Sunday night.  All was merry and bright.
Okay, gruesome part's over.
Christmas morning I headed to church bright and early, and got ready to read part of the Christmas story out of the bible for the Primary's Christmas program.  I went up when it was my turn, got almost to the podium, and stopped dead in my tracks.  The guy who was supposed to go after me took my part! So I crouched there like an idiot and figured out what his part was so I could read it instead.  After part stealing man sat got done, I got out of my crouch, walked over to where the first counselor in the primary presidency was standing and waited for the primary to sing their other song.  I headed over to the podium again and turned back around because another song had started.  Finally, I read my impromptu part at the right time, and went back to my seat quite embarrassed.
After church I went to Mesa for brunch with my mom's side of the family.  Nothing tragic happened here, but it was pretty fun to sit around and laugh about certain (crazy) family members who shall remain nameless for their protection.
Besides all the puking and part-stealing, we had a pretty swell Christmas, and hope you did too! Bring on 2012!