Chet's 2nd Post, My favorite Christmas decorations?

Yes, that is right. I am going to blog on my very favorite Christmas decorations. Some of you may be asking if Jaime is putting me up to this and the answer is NO. In all honesty, I love the Christmas season and one of my favorite things is the various decorations we put around the house. It is a yearly tradition and I thought I would share with the world some of my favorite things. (As a side note, for those of you concerned by the un-manly nature of this post, I just have to go on record by saying that I have never been all that concerned about appearing manly. Those of you that know me know of my love for goth-girl rock; Garbage, Evanescence and Paramore, as well as my love of the Twilight series of books, yep that's right I said it and I have no issues with it, so there.)

Anyway, here we go.

So, let's start with the outside of the house. We have a 2-story home and I do not own a ladder so we actually pay someone to put lights on the roofline and above the porch. Lining the walkway are some really cool tiny Christmas trees that Jaime and I purchased during an after-Christmas sale at Target a number of years ago. It takes me many hours every year to get all that stuff up, but I like the way it makes the house look and am considering keeping it up year round...There are a number of Christmas ornaments that mean a lot to me. The first one is an ornament that my father and I made when I was like 3. We made them out of some sort of flour and water mix and 27 years later they are still around. I don't have a lot of things from that era of my life and I think it is cool to haul these out every year. My dad has always been a really influential part of my life and I feel like I get to honor that relationship every year when I hang up our ornaments (there are 3 from this era, I have 2 and my dad has 1)

This is the 2nd of the ornaments. It is Santa, in case you can't tell...

Ah yes, this one is super cool. When I was smaller I remember Wendy taking me to a Christmas craft fair at Provo high. There I found this awesome home-made Ghostbusters ornament. To this day I am the only person I know of with unlicensed Ghostbuster merchandise...

So, one of my favorite movies, Christmas or otherwise, is A Christmas Story. This year Jaime purchased for me a leg lamp ornament. Yep, that's right, the soft glow of electric sex right on my tree...(it's a quote from the movie, BTW, I know that at some point I will be asked to explain myself)So, I have this pet peeve about Nativity Scenes. I find it absolutely ridiculous when those cheesy gift stores that sell all sorts of nick-knacks put out Nativity Scenes that feature non-human characters. Knowing this, Jaime purchased for me an ornament that features the traditional Nativity Scene but with Mooses (Meese?). Yep, moose baby Jesus...

This one is especially awesome because I made it. When I was younger we decided to make our own ornaments one year. For some reason I decided to purchase a pair of wooded birds and paint them and then highlight their feathers in glitter-glue. This is the extent of my artistic talent...

OK, last ornament. This one was a gift from a family that I baptised when I was a missionary in Russia. The Russians didn't have much and it meant a lot that they would spare some of what they did have to give me a gift.

There are a couple non-ornament decorations I wanted to bring attention to as well:

I bought this Nativity Scene for Jaime last year. Jaime is into these weird Willow Tree figurines and I thought that this made for a cool decoration but I am always way freaked out by the fact that nothing has a face. Oh well, at least they are human...I think...

One of my favorite traditions we had as kids was the Christmas countdown tree. There are little pockets for treats and each day someone gets to hang an ornament and eat a treat. I used to always love it when it was finally my turn. Wendy was gracious enough to make one for our family when Olivia was born. One of my favorite recent memories of this tradition is explaining to Liv that when the last ornament was hung we knew it was Christmas Eve. When we weren't watching her she tried to hang all the ornaments up to "hurry" Christmas along...I love the logic of kids...

This is my Christmas stocking. I remember buying it at the mall when I was a kid. We all had some sort of bear-looking stockings. It brings lots of fun memories about trying to wake my parents up at 4AM so we could open presents and them saying NO until about 5:30 AM or so. Most of our really cool gifts would not be wrapped and would be sitting out around our stockings. We would play with the gifts that were out until the parental units would finally awaken and we could begin. While technically we were probably lower middle-class growing up,

Dad and Wendy always provided an incredible Christmas for us. I can only imagine how long it took to pay off :)

OK, so for the finale:

So, my very favorite Christmas movie is absolutely the Rankin-Bass classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I will have to do a separate blog post about the myriad ways and reasons I love this movie. Anyway, when Jaime and I were first married, she saw an advertisement for this really cool Christmas village and at the rock-bottom price of $49.95. Well, what Jaime didn't realize was that it was actually 8 easy installments of $49.95...

Yeah, so as an indigent married couple I ended up paying over $400 USD for a Christmas village! I told Jaime that I forgive her but to this day I am still not sure...

Anyway, I absolutely love this Christmas village and take great joy from my ownership thereof. Here are some extra shots of said village:

Anyway, this is my monster-sized Christmas post. I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me.
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
Chet

Disneyland Recap

I didn't think that Disneyland could be a more magical place than it already is but I was wrong. In fact, Chet and I decided that if we only went to Disneyland once a year it would be during the Christmas season.

The decorations alone are worth the trip. They are amazing and adorn everything! Even the tiny houses on "Storybook" have wreaths on the doors and tiny pots of poinsettias! Each land has decorations that match that area. My favorite is Sleeping Beauty Castle. Every night there is a little ceremony when they turn the lights on the castle, and after they are turned on it snows! It is pure magic.

They have lots of fun events that they do as well, like Santa's Reindeer Round Up (you get to meet Santa and his reindeer. Yep, real reindeer), Haunted Mansion Holiday (which is decorated with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme), and "It's a Small World" Holiday (with so many Christmas lights it's unbelievable).

It's a Small World

They finally reopened Sleeping Beauty Castle, it has been closed since 9/11.

Liv and Chrys being weird on Autopia.

Harris in Pixie Hollow sat down and said "take a picture". OK. (Cute shirt huh Ben? It's his favorite. Thanks again.)

Ahhh, we love Uncle Chrys. (at the giant tree in California Adventure)

Chet (the jerk) got to go to Disneyland one night and stay after hours for an HP event. I have always wanted to be at Disneyland without anyone else there. What an amazing experience for Chet. He said it was "surreal" to be there without hardly anyone else. He took this picture on Main Street as he was leaving the event. (notice the absence of people, awesome!) We later found out that price for such an experience is about 350k!!!

We also got to see lots of new characters! So check out the "Our Hobby" slide show.

Santa and Talkin' Turkey

Today was another fabulous day at Disneyland! Chet had a break in his meetings and actually got to spend most of the afternoon with us. I was happy about that because I really wanted to take the kids to see Santa today. I think that tomorrow, being Friday, would have been too busy. As it was the wait was only about 20 minutes. It was great! Livvy was very excited that it was the "real" Santa not the fake one like at the mall. Harris was hesitant at first but Livvy took his had and walked up to Santa with him. When they sat down Santa asked them what they wanted, of course. Harris immediately said, "Spike the Dinosaur!". Liv was more reserved and told him Rollerblades. When I asked her, "Why Rollerblades?" she said because Santa won't know what a Juicy purse is. (which is what she really wants) It was really fun. After we saw Santa, Harris had to show Chet the "chicken". When we got to the turkey there was a whole bunch of people standing around trying to get the turkey's attention. Harris went right up to the cage and started screaming at the bird like he did yesterday. (such a boy) Sure enough the turkey started gobbling back. It was hilarious! I did feel bad for the bird though so I made Harris stop, but that didn't stop other kids from trying the same thing. However, he did not gobble at any of them. Just call Harris "The Turkey Whisperer".

Presidential Pardon

Every year on Thanksgiving The President "pardons" a turkey. Do any of you know what happens to the turkey after he is "pardoned"? No, he doesn't get eaten anyway. He gets to live at Disneyland! We happen to be at Disneyland right now and got to see him. He is so cute!("and delicious," says Chet) Harris was fascinated and started making gobbling noises at him. They turkey responded by gobbling right back and scaring Harris to death! Needless to say Harris was done looking at the turkey after that.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

So, today would have been my mom's 53 birthday. It was a melancholy day. In honor of our birthday lunch tradition, my dad, sisters and I all went to lunch at the Red Lobster, one of my mom's fave places. When our waiter came to get our orders, he asked what the special occasion was. We all sat there in an awkward moment of silence before I told him, then he had his awkward moment not knowing what to say to that. It was a nice but weird lunch. She should have been there with us.

My good friend Jana gave me a framed quote that says "If I had a flower for each time I thought of my mother, I could walk in my garden forever." Not all of you knew my mom so to remember her on her birthday I wanted to share some thoughts of her:

She was beautiful
She was an amazing listener, and would listen with genuine interest
She had more friends than anyone I know
She had a green thumb, she won yard of the week 3 years in a row
She was the fastest walker on the planet, none of us could ever keep up with her
She was an efficiency expert "if you are going up take something up if you are going down take something down"
She was FFA queen

She loved to get her nails done, OPI Bogota Blackberry was her favorite nail polish color

She never had her cell phone with her
She loved animals, and had good animal aura

She loved to go on criuses, Alaska was her favorite
We always knew when she had a migraine because she would do "the eyebrow thing"
She was always "on the up and up"
She loved to make up useful sayings

She loved jammy time
She always gave the best gifts
Her house was decorated with grapes
She was obsessed with Africa and always wanted to go on a safari
She thought she was a doctor in a former life and would often prescribe "cocktails"
She was fascinated by forensics
She loved Ralph Lauren clothing
She always and only wore Eternity perfume, every time I smell it I cry
She always stood when she ate
She could eat her body weight in lime sherbet (all 100 pounds of her)
She was a hard worker, she managed Musicland and Sam Goody in the mall for 25 years
She knew anything an everything about all kinds of music
Elton John and any smooth jazz were her favorite
Even though she worked full time she still made me breakfast every morning
She was an immaculate cleaner, her house was always spotless
She loved Pepsi, I have a picture of me with a bottle filled with the stuff
Her favorite breakfast was a can of Pepsi and a bowl of dry Shredded Wheat
She loved to eat ice but she had to let it "breathe" first
She would put a bag inside her garbage bag
She broke several teeth eating sour candy (another fave)
She was an amazing chef and always cooked like there were 500 people coming over
Her grandkids were her world! I know that Olivia loved her more than me...

Most of all she was my best friend! I miss her everyday and hope she knows that I love her "forever, forever".
Happy Birthday Mommy! I love you!!!

The Robinson Men

On Monday we went to the Robinson's new house for family dinner and Family Home Evening. We had a really good time. The kids were in heaven! The new house has a full size basketball court and full size pool. Too bad that it is winter and not summer! They did brave the cold, however, and play basketball for about 45 minutes before they were frozen. The picture is of the guys playing Harris's new favorite game Hungry Hippos. I bought it for him after his dentist appointment. He was so good getting his cleaning and (unfortunately) first filling. He did it all without sedation or gas! So he deserved a "prize". What handsome guys!

Trevor's Birthday

Today was my nephew, Trevor's, birthday. We had a great family birthday dinner at Jann's house.(as always) Yesterday he had a bowling party with his friends. Liv and Harris had a blast. Liv was winning until she dropped a bowling ball on her fingers. She couldn't bend them after that. But the best bowler of the afternoon was Ryan, Jann's 2 year old. He got 7 strikes! All the kids thought it was great, they would cheer like crazy for him. He was so proud of himself. It was cute. Anyway, Happy Birthday Trev! We love you!