Christmas Vacation 2012

I know I'm many, many weeks late, but I wanted to get this posted so I'll never forget it (I actually wrote it like a month ago). I'll have a more recent one coming soon. Eventually...

Here's how our awesome Christmas Vacation turned out:

Visiting Tooele-ish Places

It just wouldn't be time off without a bit of running around. I went to Stansbury Park, Tooele, Grantsville, Magna (not Tooele territory, but close), and Wendover (Tooele territory, but not close). One of the highlights was visiting my best friend of many years who had her first baby in December. I'm so happy for her!

Another highlight was visiting Clayton's sister's family, Leila and Josh, in Wendover. They live on the Utah side, but we crossed over to Nevada to watch their oldest daughter perform in a dance recital. There's a line on the road letting travelers know when they cross from Utah to Nevada, but they don't really need it. The casinos right smack on the line are a dead giveaway that we're not in Kansas anymore. (I mean Utah.) It was nice to drop by the Leila and Josh's place, since they're always the ones driving up to see us and everyone else.

This was the first Christmas I would be away from my parents, so we made sure to spend some time with them and their recent addition to the family, Riley, their hyperactive, chewing-obsessed, goofy, lovable Border Collie. With all the Riley, frosting cookies, and Christmas movies going on, the days flew by until it was time to drive up to the chilly, lakey North.

Couldn't resist posting a couple pics of us and Riley

The Dreaded Drive to Minnesota

The trip was hard for me and the longest I've ever been on. If we hadn't carpooled with another couple, I would never have agreed to drive through the night. When my turn came, right when my normal bedtime would be, I spent the longest 3.5 hours of my life trying to stay awake. It's funny, because when I started college, I could stay up and drive until 2:00am without a yawn. The difference was that this time--unlike those days--I had already been in a car for 4 hours, I had been fighting to fall asleep before I took the wheel, I was used to the sleep schedule of an employee and not a student, and there were no other talkative college students awake with me. But now, with nothing but my music, snacks, high beams, and the occasional semi truck for company, I drove along the two-lane highway in empty darkness.

Clayton woke up for the last little part of my shift and put in a movie. When he took the wheel, he asked me to stay awake for as long as I could, but I didn't last long. Thankfully, my handsome stud of a husband made it through the rest of the lonely night and we all woke to a glorious rising sun. All my hating of the dark was transformed into a quadrupled loving of the light, a moment that helped me appreciate all the light and dark analogies that exist in the world.

The worst was over. As we drove past the aftermath of a huge storm in Iowa, I saw how blessed we were to avoid the "worst" that befell many others. There were semi trucks off the road, many facing the wrong direction or knocked over sideways. Later the highway was strung with more cars off the road sunk deep in a ditch of snow, a graveyard of stuck and abandoned vehicles. Some were sideways, and we came across one pile of smashed cars with a car upside down. How grateful I am that we didn't drive through that storm! The road was still bumpy and slick with frozen snow caked to the surface, and I spent a huge part of the trip trying to sleep or read to keep my mind off what could still happen. This was one of those times in my life that I turned to my beliefs and faith, seeking the peaceful assurance that no matter what happened, everything would be okay. I seek that assurance a lot when I'm driving. Rather than focus on how my life is in the hands of strangers and hostile weather on the road, I imagine how my life is in the hands of the Lord. Makes me feel lots better.

Ahoy, Minnesota!

I'll be honest. When we finally reached Minnesota in the evening, nearly 24 hours after leaving Utah, I was a soulless zombie. I don't remember anything except waiting for dinner, then falling asleep on an air mattress. We had go to choir practice at 8:00am the next morning so all the Watts could sing in their ward's Christmas Program for church. Zombies don't sing, so I watched the Watts practice with a blurry, short attention span. I dazed my way through church, and when I was finally free to let my body crash, Clayton and I crammed together on a twin bed, fell asleep in 5 seconds, and didn't move for the next 4 hours.

When I woke from that beautiful nap I was a real person again with a soul, and actually cared about being there.

Christmas

I went caroling with the singin' Watts the day before Christmas Eve and got an icy taste of a Minnesota winter. Nothing I wore was ever warm enough; only the warm fuzzy glow of the Christmas Spirit moved me from place to place. That, and the fact that Clayton's sister's new husband from Colorado was also freezing. Together we suffered the shivering of the Dry Climate Dwellers.

On Christmas Eve itself, I was a little homesick when evening approached since I hadn't done any of the traditional activities of my family. At the same time, it was sweet to experience the traditions of another family. Here's what the Watts do on Christmas Eve, in no particular order:

1. Hop in a sauna, then hop in the snow (didn't do the snow part this year though)

2. Play Christmas songs band-style: They had two trumpets, a trombone, a French horn, a clarinet, two guitars, a cello, a piano, and the bells (percussion) for Clayton. Crazy enough, percussion is what I played in high school for a short time, so I could share my husband's instrument and be a part of their musical jamboree. Awesome.

3. Act out the Christmas Story from the scriptures

4. Open a present: Not a tradition my family has done, so I felt weird doing it. When one of the girls opened a pair of socks, I figured that'd be a perfect pre-Christmas gift, and sent Clayton to find me a gift that felt like socks. We scored.

The days that followed Christmas were filled with basketball, volleyball, Les Miserables, and family games. While sore and aching muscles pounded my body, I still had a blast.