Tales of Christmas Past

Well hello there, Blogging World. Lovely to see you again. Forgive me for my absence, I have been in the midst of life, you understand. Ironically enough I am finding it difficult to think of things to write about. Not for lack of "happenings" if you will, but just that I can't imagine why anyone would feel compelled to read about MY happenings. I mean really...how exciting can my life be for other people? Not very. I like it though, so that's good. A wise friend of mine once told me that even if I am just blogging to blog and no one ever reads it...it's still a nice way to "talk it out". A release, if you will. So here goes...the topic of this blog shall be: my favorite Christmas-time memories of my 26 years of life...what can I say? I'm feeling holly AND jolly. Here goes. (these are not in chronological order, by the way)

#1...When Derek arrived at my old Watergate Drive townhouse at some ridiculous hour (I believe it was 6 am) and woke me up on Christmas Morning. I was not pleased. I am someone who likes my sleep. I opened the door and returned immediately to the couch where I proceeded to close my eyes and get back to my dreams. He said he needed a drink "mmm-k." I replied, but he was back a little too soon and kneeling next to me on the couch he pulled out a beautiful ring and asked "will you marry me?" AHH! Any guy who proposes to a girl with some kickin' morning breath, dressed in sweats and a crooked ponytail must really love her! And the rest is history folks...

#2...When I was a little girl (4 or 5? As a matter of fact I think I had JUST turned 5) all I wanted was an Easy Bake Oven. Seriously...it was my life long wish. So on Christmas Eve, much to my delight I was able to open and play with said treat-maker. Well, get this...my Mom made me share the dang thing!! Can you believe her??? Well, naturally I was not compliant and she informed me that if I didn't want to share I could return to my room and sit alone. Which I did. Not before I dialed 911 to inform the operator that my mother was "being bad to me" though. Approximately 10 minutes after I hung up the phone when the operator told me Santa doesn't bring gifts to children who are naughty, a police officer showed up at our doorstep. Needless to say, my mother was not feeling the "Christmas Spirit" when she came back to my room. (Ok, Ok...so maybe this isn't a favorite memory per se, but it DOES stand out!)

#3...When I dressed up as a ridiculous Elf with Liz Logan-Eagle (was it an elf? Well..."something" anyway) for "Christmas Coffeehouse" at LU and was selected by Santa Claus (aka Mike Sanders...shhh...don't tell!) to perform a "catwalk" routine on stage. Well...all was fine and dandy until I actually got ON stage. Do you even know how many people FIT in the Vines Center?? A lot. That's how many. Well, I choked!! I could hear my friends (only a few rows back from the stage) yelling something to me but I couldn't make it out. As soon as I stepped off the stage (losing the prize to some idiot wearing only an extremely large Santa hat...so lame) it hit me! "THROW THE CANDY" they were yelling. AHA! I had completely forgotten the special mini-stocking pockets that I had glued on to the front of my poinsettia sweater that were full of delicious holiday treats for the crowd!! Darn. This memory would have been better if I had won the prize, but alas...goofy Santa Hat guy beat me. The point of this one though is that I love my crazy friends dearly and I miss them lots.

#4...Watching a 24-loop on TNT of "The Christmas Story" in my Great-Grandparent's den with all of my siblings and cousins. The best.

#5...(and I will stop for now because...well...I feel like it I guess, plus who is honestly going to read all of this?) creating "family" Christmas with friends when we couldn't be with our real families. There are actually several memories that fall into this category because of the fact that I have lived away from my family for quite some time, but most recently we spent Brennan's first Christmas with "Not Our Family". (The "not our" stemming from the days in college when I was put in a dorm room with LindsAy Johnson...TWO Lindsa/ey Johnson's in one room, people!! Her family sort of adopted me and called me "Not Our Lindsey"--it's a term of endearment, trust me. So now that we have Brennan he calls them (or will when he can talk) "No'ma and No'pa" and they are seriously good people. Some of the best, actually.)

I love making memories with my family and friends and this really is the most wonderful time of the year. I am blessed. I think I'll make an effort to keep this thing updated more often, but lets be honest...who knows how that'll turn out. Bye bye for now.