Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

Christmas was delightful. We have three families that we hit (not literally); My parents, Jordan's dad's family and Jordan's mom's family. I've never been grateful that my extended family doesn't get together for Christmas until I got married.

Last year was full of stress and much angst as we rushed from family thing to family thing, and we didn't even get to open our presents at home until late in the afternoon, and even that was rushed as we had to dash out for another family gathering. This year we had a better plan. And, miraculously our respective families had unintentionally planned their activities at the most perfect time for us to meet the needs of each party.

But, back to the plan.

Because my family was getting together at eight-bloody-thirty in the AM Christmas morning, that would mean that Jordan and I would have to get up around sixish to open our presents, shower and make it to my parents by 8:30. Yeah (humph) right. Christmas is to be full of joy and love, and me waking up at the butt crack of dawn doesn't exactly instill those emotions in me. So our plan was to open presents Christmas Eve. Coupled with the additional sleep this would provide and the fact that we were opening presents a good 9 hours earlier than we would have otherwise, I saw this as a win-win.

Christmas Eve afternoon (is that considered an oxy moron?) we went to BFE (that's my way of saying I can't even remember where we went) where Jordan's Grandpa (mom's side) was having a Christmas party. That was a lot of fun. We had also brought Jordan's mom's Christmas present with us to give to her. Jordan's brother rode with us, and also brought presents to hand out to the family. After we got to the party and had greeted everyone Jordan's brother got my keys to transfer presents from my car to pass along to Jordan's mom. After the party Jordan asked his brother if he had given that present we brought to his mom, and he said yup! So we get home and looked in the back seat and there is Jordan's mom's present! He rode home from BFE (a good 45 min) with it sitting next to him and didn't say anything! Good one Chad! :)

From there we went to my parents' house for Christmas Eve dinner, and I let it slip to my mom that we were opening presents Christmas Eve. She was less than pleased. She is very much against the whole idea of opening presents early. She made it clear that I was not to open presents early! But really, what is she going to do, ground me? HA! So after dinner my family was going to go look at some fancy schmancy lights in Lindon, and I declined saying I was off to go unwrap my waiting presents!!! Muahahahaha!!!

On the whole this was a brilliant idea 'cause we could relax and enjoy opening presents in our own sweet time. As we had finished my mum called. She said that they were around the corner, and asked if she could stop by. I looked over my shoulder to my shredded wrapper-strewn living room and said "Uh, suuuuuure." She laughed and asked if she caught me. Yup, she caught me red-handed all right. She then admitted that she was actually in AF. Trixy woman.

I had gotten Jordan a LoveSac for the blessed holiday, so we cracked that sucker out, and a DVD that I had also gotten him and enjoyed the rest of the evening sans stress.

Christmas morning we were able to make it to my parents in PG right on time and enjoyed a fantastic breakfast of waffles and then unwrapped presents from family, but had to leave right after to get to AF to drop off Jordan's mom's present in order to make it back to Orem in time to have brunch with Jordan's dad and family. After that we had just enough time to watch another movie and take a delicious nap and get over to Jordan's grandparents (dad's side) for dinner in Provo.

Phew, a crazy but fun and festive two days. We were able to make it to all the parties that we wanted to and had a lot of fun with all of our family. Although a small part of me wishes I married an orphan.