Christmas & New Year combo post.

Christmas this year was an interesting one.  Being the only child who isn't married, I'm the only one who doesn't have to worry about switching holidays with in laws and all that crap.  While, I'm sure my parents love having me home, I bet they secretly wish I would magically get hot and appealing to the opposite sex and get married.  Even if that meant that they had to spend one Christmas morning without any of their kids..  Well, I don't think they are holding their breath yet.  I'm just waiting for myself to get motivated to get out of this fat and awkward stage I've been in for the last 20 years ( I think it was 6 that it started.. I'll have to go back and look at pictures). I'm not complaining.  In fact, I'm laughing pretty hard about it because I'm picturing my baptism picture when I was 8 years old.  My lack of athleticism was starting to show but I started to overcompensate with my bubbly personality.  That picture was the start of it all. hahahaha. If I find the picture I'll post it so I can show you.  Mom Dad, don't worry, I'll get there!  Well, I'm sure I will always be awkward but I'm cool, so I feel like that will balance itself out eventually.  In the meantime, I'm just really glad that I was able to be home with my mom and dad for Christmas (even if it means I'm single and have to go to the home ward where people younger than me are married and have two or three kids.  I'll take it!  Plus, it means I get more presents.  BOOM!)

I decided to take the whole week off because my Dad had to work his long campaign shifts once again and I didn't want my mom to be alone.  I have to give props to my dad for a second.  My dad has worked at his job for 30+ years.  Same job, same campaign season every year ( Campaign is October-February-ish where he gets this crazy schedule that has him alternate between 12 hour day shifts and 12 hour night shifts and can't take extra days off outside of his schedule.  Holidays are no exception.)    Boy would that drive me nuts.  It messes up your sleep schedule and basically it gets to the point where I'm sure you feel like you only sleep and work.  Looking back now, I can't remember him complaining at all growing up.  I'm sure it's because we weren't old enough to really understand even if he did complain.  And we probably just never asked how work was.  We had no concept of money or hard work.  I feel bad about that now, but I was only a child so I will forgive myself and forgive my future children in advance.  

The only time I ever really noticed his weird schedule was during Christmas when he'd have to work the night shift.  Cole and Jaym and I could never sleep on Christmas Eve night because we were so excited.  We had a rule that we couldn't go out into the living room and we couldn't go and look at the tree to see what Santa brought until Dad got home at 7:30 am on Christmas morning.  I vividly remember a couple of years running across the living room without peeking and waiting in Mom and Dad's room with the door closed until dad got home or waiting in the hall by the heat vent until he got home.  Dad never complained about opening gifts right when he got home even though I'm sure he was so tired.  I'm writing this all down now because now that I'm in my mid twenties (I think 26 is still mid? well, I'm saying it is) I've realized how hard my dad works for us and how much he (and my mom) would do anything for us.  Even this year Cole and Kier got home at 3am the day after Christmas and we all woke up at 7:30 am so we could open gifts before Dad went to bed.  He didn't complain.

I have great parents.

The good news is that Dad is retiring at the end of May so we won't have to deal with another campaign season again!  I'm so excited about that and I know he is too.  He has senioritis right now.  He's already counting down the days until he's out of there.  I'm so happy for him!  

Back to being the only child that's not married.. this year Cole and Kier were on the off season and spent the holiday with her family and then Jamie and her family stayed in DC.  Since dad worked and we had our Hansen family dinner the day before Christmas eve this year, mom and I just stayed home Christmas eve night.  We watched a Hallmark movie with Grandma and then came home and watched Insidious 2 (I was pretty much done with Christmas movies at that point).  I think when you get older, and don't have a lot of family around, or kids around, Christmas isn't magical, but it's still great when you sit back and appreciate the people you do have around you and the true meaning of Christmas--Love.  I love my Savior! I love my family! I'm so grateful for everything I have.  But this year I mostly can't get over how grateful I am for my parents. 

 Mom kept telling me all week that she kept having this premonition that she wasn't going to be here next Christmas.  Of course I told her that she was being ridiculous, but on my drive home yesterday I kept getting taken back by what she said and may or may not have ugly cried all the way from home to Boise..  What if mom wasn't around next Christmas?  I'm going to bet and say that she will still be here but it's true that you really never know when it will be someones time to go.  I should have been happier this break.  I was happy but I didn't really do a good job of making each day count.  In fact, I spent a lot of time on the couch watching movies and googling random fact that don't matter. (For example--does the "Man with half a body" have private parts?  I'll save you time.  He does.  Mom and Kier and I even started watching the documentary on Netflix because we were THAT curious.  I still feel like I need to see pictures to prove it.  But I'll take his fiance's word for it.) I'm a little upset that I wasted a lot of time this break where I could have made some better memories with the people I love the most.. uhh..I'm going to wrap this section up before I start ugly crying again but since tomorrow is the last day of 2013, I want to just make a simple resolution for this year.  There won't be anyway to really judge it, but I just want to try to live more in the moment and make my days count.  

Normally this would be where I compile this long post about all of the things I did and learned in 2013 but I don't want to go into too many details because this post is already longer than I planned on it being.  I know what happened this year and if you read my blog or have been a part of my life at all this year then you know that it wasn't a super exciting year.  I will just say this: 2013 was hard.  I've learned a lot, made some mistakes, spent a lot of time praying and fixing them, went through the temple :), figured out that I'm way too hard on myself,  moved again (still in Layton), and wasted a lot of time (Yes, I had some pretty good times too).  I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  I just want to try to do better.  That's the exciting part about the start of a new year.  We get to try and no one can really judge us for changing or being weird all of a sudden (because admit it, sometimes people go a little extreme with this New Years stuff).  Somethings we won't see coming in the new year and we might not have any control over some of it, but we can pick ourselves up when we fall, we can try harder to put our phones down and be more in the moment when we are with people we love and care about.  So, yet again, here's to trying harder..and praying that mom isn't like Sandra Bullock in that one premonition movie. 


The end.

Happy New Year :)