Christmas Traditions

Although every year the details are different, my family pretty much sticks to tradition when it comes to the holidays. As a youngster, I remember always being preoccupied about what I was going to get for Christmas. But as time passes, its the memories and time with my family that I really remember, not the gifts I got. There are usually some pretty funny stories and adventures as we go and this year was no exception.

Dec 24: Christmas Eve is always spent with my dad's side at our family cabin in Island Park. My dad has a huge family-most usually come for Christmas so we have a really full house at the cabin. Thats what I love about it though, there is always a big fire going, games to play, movies to watch, and tons of food to eat. We spend the day snowmobiling around the cabin area.

This year, my cousin Sarah and I spent most of the day together. We have found common ground in that we have both hit the age of 20 and are unmarried (a big shocker for our family). Sarah is hysterical and really adventurous (watch out everyone, she is coming to BYU next semester!) Sarah and I decided to take a little trip on the snowmachine and I was kind enough to let her drive. That turned out to be a mistake. She hit the gas full throttle before I had hardly situated myself and we were off. I was clinging on for dear life. The whole time I was thinking of the headline that would appear in the paper the next day when someone finally found our bodies..."Death By Snowmobile!" or something of the like. No, really I returned safe and sound except for the huge goose egg that I have on my forehead from when we came to an un-known pit and caught some major air, subsequently causing me to land on top of Sarah and jam my helmet into my head when we returned to the ground again.

After the cabin, we head to my grandma's house were we have the traditional nativity scene with the kids all dressed up in elaborate costumes followed by the "state of the family address" by my grandfather. He is quite the rambler and his speeches can be quite lengthy, but this year we got off early with just a 20-30 min talk. Everyone then moves downstairs to open our presents. Ever since I can remember, they have always been arranged in a snake around the room with the youngest opening their presents first, all the way up to the oldest.

Dec 25: We spend the day at my Grandma's on my mom's side of the family. Even though she is currently on a mission, we still use her house as a gathering spot. We typically start with a HUGE meal that is easily consumed in 10 minutes. Everyone's favorite part of the meal is that we absolutely have to have candy canes in our diet 7up. Although everyone really hates it, we do it anyway just to keep the tradition alive. For presents, my uncle acts as Santa and some of the littler kids are his elves, delivering all the gifts under the tree.

This year we were in for a real surprise. My grandma had shipped all of our gifts from Nauvoo and they all arrived looking like they had been run over by an 18-wheeler. However, they all had written on them "Homemade by Grandma with love". The anticipation was killing us of what they could possibly be. My grandma is not crafty, nor is she domestic in any way. So as everyone opened their gifts from Grandma, we discovered that they were hand-knitted scarves and hats. No one can figure out how she made them, but she did... The funniest part was that they were all completely un-matching, really quite ugly combinations. Everyone was laughing so hard by the time we were done opening them, a few people were even crying. My brother, aunt, and I were quickly voted to have received the ugliest of the scarves. Mine looks like it was a piece of carpet from the 70's. Its blue and my hat is yellow and green. Go figure! My brother's scarve changes color in the middle. It goes from a brown kind of scheme to a purple scheme. We figured that they must have run out of yarn and not known the difference. Pretty funny. My aunt insists that her neon blue scarve coupled with a gray and black hat is the worst. Its a toss-up. The gifts were definitely made with love though, and thats what counts!

I love the holidays!