Merry Christmas (and Merry After-Christmas)

Hello and Merry After-Christmas! I've been having a hard time getting past my last blog entry, my Brizzy-goodbye ... I think I just started to believe I didn't have anything worthwhile or interesting to say anymore. But I feel a little guilty and need to move on (obviously), so I'm joining the ranks and will add some holiday thoughts and pictures.

As I do every Christmas, I went to St. George to be with my mom ...

and my brother, Scott:
For years the tradition has been: "You are the Single Ones ... come home for Christmas!" And I've loved spending the holiday with my mom, dad and brother (I can't believe this was already our second Christmas without Dad). This year I felt really, really guilty for leaving Ruth behind in light of the loss of sweet Brizzy ... I felt like a good sister and friend should not leave her to spend Christmas alone (Ruth wasn't given time off from work, so she couldn't go anywhere). But as time went on it felt so important to go home and be with Mom and Scott; I just had to do it. Ruth understood. I don't think it was easy for her and Cowboy to be alone, though. I told her, "NEXT YEAR your job had BETTER let you off and you WILL go somewhere with your sister and I will stay home with the woof(s), if need be." But probably we'll try kenneling the woof(s) for at least a couple of days so we can both leave for the holiday.

So ... I left last Sunday and MISSED all the SNOW (yayyyy!) and instead, got lots of this (a nice rainy view from my mom's backyard):

A little of this (sorry, the picture's not the best -- can you tell I was driving?! shame on me):

And I came home to this (the view from our office parking lot in Provo):

"Sigh." My little California heart cried ... I don't think I will ever, ever, EVER get used to the snow. It's beautiful -- it's fun -- it's ... (let's see, I should be able to think of more positive descriptions, surely) ... it's scary and wet and cold and messy. Oh well!

It was such a sweet, peaceful week for me. This has been a very harrowing year ... one of those extremely painful ones you grow from astronomically but NEVER want to repeat more than once in a decade. So I am grateful for the quiet, the good spirit, the non-busying days that marked this Christmas experience. We ate out a lot (hah! Nance & Sue, I never thought I'd see it but Mom was actually tired of going out after several days! hahahahahaha!) and we watched some videos: "October Sky" (GREAT MOVIE!!!!), "The Polar Express," "Prophets and Presidents," "Hinckley: a Giant Among Men," "The Legend of Johnny Lingo" ... and read books, took naps and yakked & yakked & yakked. (I've often wondered if other families sit around and talk as much as ours does whenever we get together - hah.) We even tried to watch "The Polar Express" a-la-3D ...

But we didn't last more than five minutes -- HAHAHAHAHA! We needed a giant-screen TV I think. We end up watching it "normal" and enjoyed it very much. But the glasses are cool, don't you think? (hehe)

And of course on Christmas Eve we caught one of the best parts of "It's a Wonderful Life" - the last 25 minutes. Is there anyone who doesn't love that ending? Is there anyone who doesn't cry, no matter how many hundreds of times they've seen it? That's gotta be one of the best feel-good movies of all time (thank you, Frank Capra!). I was unfortunate enough to come down with a "small flu" on Christmas Day ... fortunately it wasn't severe enough to ruin the holiday - just strong enough to keep me from wanting to eat much for a day or two (a mixed blessing).

One thing that meant a great deal to us this year: during Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story, which brought the Savior into our thoughts and hearts, and then afterwards Mom read one of Dad's journal entries from a Christmas in our past (in the '80s ... 1987?) and a couple of Christmas-past journal entries of her own. I didn't know this, but Mom has written a journal synopsis of every Christmas ... I think from the beginning of our family! Christmas, and Thanksgiving too. What a surprise - I had no idea. It was touching and uplifting to hear about Christmases in their own words. I keep being reminded of how important it is to write of our experiences. SO important! What we see, what we do, what we feel, in our own words ... priceless.

You know, the gifts were fun and the candy plentiful (oh dear):

but it's the connections that mattered most ... being with my mom and brother, having each of my other brothers and sisters call in (and some of "the grandkids"), hearing that my nephew, Jared & Camilla are pregnant (YAYYY!), talking with Ruth, thinking about my friends (though dear friends, I sorely neglected you this year - I should have called and/or e-mailed, and I didn't, though I thought about it every single day), and pondering my relationship with my Heavenly parents and my Savior ... this is what Christmas was really all about, to me.

My wish is that you had a special, joyful Christmas too, and I hope you felt the love of the Savior and a love FOR the Savior that will propel you into kind acts and good patterns in the coming year now stretched out before us. CHEERS!!