We Wish You the Merriest, the Merriest

We had the merriest Christmas. It was so nice. A couple weeks ago, we kicked off the holiday season with five Christmas parties in eight days. Well, I did, anyway. We had a ward party, I had a Relief Society party, a cookie exchange with some friends, a work party with Jake's employer, and a Riley Christmas with all of Jake's maternal extended family. And in the middle of all that, I also spent an entire day baking treats to give to a few of our friends. Oh yes, and I also helped with a styled shoot for work that week. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time the week before Christmas came along.

I took that week easy, for the most part. I scrambled to figure out what to get Jake for his gifts. We spent an evening downtown (mainly so I could get some pictures of all the holiday stuff and enjoy the magic that is Christmas). And saw "The Muppets" at Cinerama. It was fun, stressful, and highly enjoyable.

Christmas Eve was spent preparing for a fancy dinner with Jake's parents. I made Beef Wellington for the first time. It was mostly good. I used sauteed onions, garlic, and mushrooms in place of the pate, and if I ever make it again, I will either use different mushrooms (I used Oyster mushrooms), or none at all. Also, the meat ended up being over-cooked, which was disappointing. And I re-discovered why I don't make meat as an entree very often. I just don't like it all that much. I like meat in things, but I don't really enjoy eating just a piece of meat. But dinner was delicious. Dessert was even better (Megan brought cheesecake, apple pie, and ice cream!). And then we headed out to see "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol". Decent flick. Especially when you consider it's a four-quel.

Christmas itself was perfect. Well, almost. Popcorn woke us up at 5:30 am, whining like crazy. We kept shushing her, hoping she'd go back to sleep. She finally went silent, but we heard her moving around a lot. Then she started whining again. I checked on her and sure enough, she had wet her bed. So we washed her feet and muzzle (didn't know if her face was wet from the pee or from crying--do dogs cry tears?), and put her back in her crate. She started whining again, and we got nervous she needed to do other business too, so we both took her outside. Which, by the way, we saw a raccoon while we were out there, and it kind of freaked us out because it was staring us down. And if you know anything about these little creatures, you know they are mean, despite their cute little faces. So we kept our distance and waited for it to leave. It finally retreated into the shadows, but it kept watching us. How do we know this? Because its eyes glowed orange. They looked like two orange LED lights. It was freaky.

Anyway, we got back inside, and by this point, I was too awake to go back to bed. So I stayed up with the pup and got stuff ready in our stockings, and then made breakfast. I finally couldn't take it any longer and woke Jake up at 8:00 so we could open our presents. Which we did (while sipping on chocolate milk from wine glasses). And then we played some Fruit Ninja on our new Kinect. And then I napped. And then Jake napped. And then we went to his parents' house for a casual dinner of pizza. We exchanged gifts with his parents (which, by the way, they made us feel spoiled rotten), ate dinner, ate dessert, and just chatted the night away.

Like I said, this Christmas was so great.

I would share pictures, but I am capturing this season on film. So when I have the pictures developed, I will post them. Think of it as a prolonged Christmas season.

Jake and I feel very lucky and blessed with what we have. We love both of our families very much. We love our family very much, even if it is small, and is 33% puppy. We love the gospel. We love God. We love Christ, and love to celebrate His birth. We hope your Christmas was merry and full of love and hope, for this what Christ has given us. We are always loved, and there is always hope. Always.