Warm Fuzzies and a Christmas to Remember

Okay, scratch what I said about "ample opportunities" to write blogs. I have been SO BUSY!! This happens to me every year; during the week prior to Christmas/Winter Break it seems like two weeks off school is SO MUCH TIME. Then the break comes around, and POOF! it's already half over!! and I haven't done anything! Well, anything that I needed or wanted to do, anyway.

The holidays were different this year because my brother wasn't here. Our family traditions seemed (and were) a little messed up, and there were a lot of things that just didn't feel quite right. It really helped that he was able to call and talk to us (YAY) for over an hour, even if he did keep us waiting for four hours up until then. All five of us were squished together on our three-person couch, anxiously waiting. :) We did really good! We didn't even start bawling until after he hung up!

The first part of my week was spent decorating and cleaning up for Christmas. It was really fun because, as I said in an earlier blog, I've been really REALLY excited for Christmas this year. I wasn't worried about getting what I had asked for, because I didn't ask for anything. It turned out pretty good! I got two super comfy blankets, both green; an awesome jacket; a BEAUTIFUL blue cotton scarf from Iain, straight from Montreal (I'm assuming...?); and a collection of talks by one of the coolest speakers ever--John Bytheway :).

Now to the real topic of this blog:

One of my favorite parts of this whole month is how my family made this a Christmas to remember. We decided the best way to do that would be to help another family have the same experience. We picked a family in our ward and did a "12 Stories of Christmas" kind of thing. Each night someone in my family would run the package (a Christmas story we had picked along with an object that symbolized something in it) to their front porch, ring the doorbell, and run to the corner of the street as fast as we could without slipping on the ice to the "Getaway Car". It was so fun! One of the earlier weeks at church, one of the kids came up to my mom and asked if it was us that was doing ''that Santa thing". They were mumbling, and they were asking kind of hesitantly, so it was easy for my mom to act as if she had no idea what they were talking about.

It gave me warm fuzzy feelings to think that even if they hadn't seen us, they had considered us people that might have done something like that. I know this will definitely be a Christmas to remember, whether it is because it's our first Christmas that we're not all home together as a family, or because we decided to make it special and exciting for someone that we knew would have had a hard time otherwise.

I'm exceedingly glad (that's #9!) that my family was able to do this service this year. I know it helped me to appreciate the strength and closeness of my own family, as well as the blessings that come from service.