Christmas Joy!

It's Christmas time! I love the Christmas season. I love the snow and the lights and the smell of christmas trees and being around family and just the general joy I feel around this time. I'm so glad I'm not one of the those people that has been scarred by Christmas in some way so they get all depressed or angry during this time. THANKS PARENTS FOR NOT SCARRING MY CHRISTMASES!

So it's a little different this year because I'm at college. *Breathe, Stephanie, Breathe*.

My heart sinks at the fact that I'm not going to be there to do the gingerbread house with my parents and put really funny stuff on it and impailing the gummy bears on the trees and sides of the house. I'm also not there to help get and decorate the tree. I'm not going to be able to help my dad pull it off the car roof and bring it into the house and try to stand it up straight. I'm not going to be able to have the pine tree smell on my hands for two days after that. I'm not going to be able to watch ebony creep in the mysterious and deep forest that is the Christmas tree and then get high on the smell of it or the water or something and watch her dart across the room behind the couch. Sadness.

But fortunately, I have done mini-versions of these here at college life! It's pretty exciting.

I got to make a gingerbread house with my little cousin Helen. I actually put the house together with the frosting and it actually stayed up and it didn't break. SUCCESS!! My mom always does it and never let us kids because it was a very "delicate and complicated procedure". Helen was so creative with her ideas and everything! And she loves pink. Hence the pink walkway and pink woodpile, which you can't see because it's on the side of the house. It was really fun.

On top of that, because I'm such an awesome FHE mom, I made our group make gingerbread houses with graham crackers for FHE one night and I made one for myself!! It's sitting next to my little Christmas tree.

Which brings me to my next item. MY TREE!!! Since I wasn't able to participate in the tree-ness of Christmas at home, I decided to get a small one with lights for our apartment.

Isn't it beautiful!?!?!? The tree was 8 bucks at target. With the lights and the ornaments and the skirt thing, it was all about 20 bucks. Awesome. Yeah, so it makes me happy every time I look at it. Even though it's not real and it doesn't smell like Christmas, I can still live with it. The sacrifices you make when you go to college. *sigh*....

So yeah. And to make our apartment even happier, my roommate, Britney, had some lights that she put up on our window.

It's my favorite thing to just sit on the couch at night with the lights on and drink hot chocolate. I sat next to them the other night and it was snowing outside. CAN IT GET ANY BETTER?!?! Oh yeah, it can. Ebony could be sitting on my lap and Skink next to me on the couch. But it was still pretty awesome.

So this is a lot of Christmas-ness. You'd think I'd be done. But i'm not. This is just the beginning. MUAHAHAHAH. And this might turn out to be one of the longest posts I've ever done. Okidok.

So for our last ward social, there was a dinner and then we all headed up to temple square!! It was so amazing!! Here are some of the pics I took.

It was so beautiful! Even though it'd be so cold, I think it would be fun to get married at the Salt Lake temple at that time of year with all the lights on. By the by, the last picture is my favorite. :) Even though there's a big light post in the way, but I kind of like the light post.

ANYWAYS! So that was really fun. Other fun events included watching "A Christmas Story" for FHE one night, watching rudolph and other movies on YouTube, and listening to the Christmas music on my playlist from this very blog. I'm just so full of Christmas, it's coming out my ears.

So to share some of the oozing Christmas goodness, here are some clips to bring you Christmas cheer.

Yes, the quality is crappy, but this is the best quality I could find of this song.

It's so great!

Ren and Stimpy classics

Elf

So yeah. Enjoy all the Christmas-ness. I'll be done with finals soon and then off on a plane home to just bust out in absolute glee!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!!!

Right on.