Christmas Eve

I'm going to remember as many details as possible about every Christmas Eve I can remember.

2011. That day we wanted to meet my sister's family at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We were about to get in the white Subaru, but it was leaking a red fluid, so we got in the Rav4 instead, listening to the Ring Christmas Bells Mormon Tabernacle Choir album. Susanne called me while we were driving and said that the Old Spaghetti Factory was closed. We pulled into the Atlantis Burger parking lot to discuss the situation. We ended up going to Olive Garden instead. I think I got some chicken entree. We got mints that I could eat. My mom apologized to the waitress for making her work on Christmas Eve, but she said she was working early in the day so that she didn't have to work that night. I remember backing out of our parking spot while my mom got a bag of candy from Susanne for Christmas morning. Then we drove past the apartment complex where my parents had lived when they were newly married. We even drove through the small parking lot. Then we went to the nearby Harmon's store. It was pretty busy. We were in one aisle, and I overheard a woman say, "If I pretend to like it, the cat will try it once." When we were out of earshot, I said to my mom, "Did you hear what I heard?" Then we stopped in the seasonal aisle. They had Christmas-shaped and -colored noodles. There were some that were bright colors and very Christmassy shapes, but we bought the ones that were a little more subdued and more generic winter shapes. I wanted to get candy canes, but surprisingly there weren't any peppermint ones. I didn't want fruit ones, so we ended up getting chocolate mint ones. I think toward the end of our shopping we went and got Cool Whip. We went home. That afternoon we watched White Christmas. Then that night my mom was making dessert for Christmas the next day. I offered to help, so she set me to work grating apples for the apple dessert. We might have listened to Michael Buble's Christmas album. I asked my mom what she wanted to listen to next, and she said she wanted to listen to Handel's Messiah. I talked about how the first disc (the one with the Christmas section) ended with ten minutes of "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Then I went downstairs to sleep, according to tradition. I looked for something to watch on TV. I found Home Alone 2 and I watched it for a time, surprised at how cheesy it was. But it didn't fit my standards, so I looked for something else. I found a really weird movie on BYUtv about a Hawaiian dad who couldn't make ends meet and a mysterious lady who sold wreaths.

2010. That morning I went to work wearing a Peanuts Christmas tree shirt. I was the only person from the AC (annual curriculum, i.e. temporary) crew working that day. We didn't have to use our headsets that morning. I had forgotten my pen in my locker and I didn't want to walk all the way back there, so I found a pen I could use. It was a pink gel pen. My coworker Melissa complimented me on my shirt. At some point our lead Heide came down and told me when I could go home. I asked her what I should do when I was done; she didn't realize it was my last day. Later she told me that if I wanted to work there again, I should definitely apply. I asked how I would go about doing that, and she told me to go through the same process as I did to get the job in the first place. (And the following August, I did!) When it was time to leave, I gathered all my stuff from my locker and went up the the "skybox" (offices) and gave Heide my key. My other coworkers said goodbye to me. Then I came home and I think I took a nap. Then I was playing Christmas songs on the piano when Susanne and Allie came over. Susanne pointed out the giant pink spot on my pants. I hadn't realized that the pink gel pen had soaked my pants, since it didn't have a lid. We had a turkey dinner at our small dining room table. Susanne and Allie left, and I got dressed to go running. I was wearing my bright green shirt, and my mom said she didn't remember I had one. I told her that she herself bought it for my birthday. (The reason she seemed so surprised was that she got me a bright green shirt for Christmas.) I went running, but since I had eaten so much, I got a bad sideache. I saw some women running and I felt dumb for wimping out. I had to quit after only like 10 minutes. I came home and my dad asked how my run was. I said it wasn't good. He said it was probably because it had been so long since I'd run, but I thought it was because of all the food. I'm sure we would have watched White Christmas but I don't specifically remember it. I went to bed downstairs. I found a high-number cable station that played soft-rock Christmas music. I listened to it for a time. They had some weird music, like one song about a red and green toy (it seemed loosely based on that old song "bop when it stopped, whirr when it stood still..."). I remember thinking I was a little sad that it wouldn't be a complete Christmas at home.

2009. I wore my glasses with the pink-ish lenses. In the morning my mom was making pies. My designated Christmas movie that morning was Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, which we watched while she made pies. Preston said something about having seen it before. Allie said, "You've never seen this," but I told her that I had shown it to him a few weeks earlier. When the characters talked about "Milton the flying ice cream man," David looked at the movie to see what was going on, but it made sense to him that he flew in a hot air balloon. When the villain explained his nefarious plot, David said it was "convoluted," but not as convoluted as one of the Batman movies. Allie and Preston and Franklin all wanted to help my mom make pies. There was a mishap and Allie fell of the chair she was standing on and ended up making a mess with the flour. My mom looked at me with an annoyed look and then said that the kids couldn't help anymore. Allie said it was Franklin's fault because he had knocked her off, so she should still be able to help. After the movie, my brother and dad and I took the kids up to the Eaglewood golf course to go sledding. My brother and dad picked a hill that had no other people, but I was a little skeptical because there was a parking lot at the bottom. Preston was being brattily stubborn and he had already made up his mind that he wasn't going to have fun, so he cried the whole time, even when he went down the hill. My dad had to take him home while David and I stayed with Allie and Franklin.

 Just when my dad got back, Allie wanted to go home. So we went home again. Later that night my grandparents and cousins came over. My grandparents brought some white fudge with cherries in it. I can't remember exactly what happened when everyone came. I think they were mostly interested in Franklin. After they left, we watched Miracle on 34th Street. Franklin was being adorable. He found a jumprope and bounced up and down while flailing it in front of him, as if he were jumping rope. (I took a video on my phone, but for some reason my phone deleted it without my permission.) He also made his mom wear some little kid glasses. When she tried to take them off, he forbade her, and went around humming "Jingle Bells." We all had looks on our faces of how cute and funny it was. I told David and Ya-ping that I was going to sleep downstairs, so they could sleep in my bed to be in the same room as the boys.

2008. In the morning I came upstairs and Elder Love was talking with the Herrons, the couple we stayed with. He had taken my Rejoice and Be Merry! album from the car and was listening to it on their stereo. At the end of the "I Saw Three Ships" organ solo, Sister Herron said the organist must have fallen on the keyboard. We were supposed to do our weekly planning that morning, but I can't remember if we did, because we heard that our zone leaders had gone to the South Hill to go sledding. We went and got haircuts at a little shop in town. While we were there, the barber got a call from a salesman and was quite rude. I became kind of scared of the guy. Then we went to the Davenport library. I emailed first. This is what my email said:
"I have to be brief today. I'm emailing today because our preparation day was switched to today for Christmas Eve. We are emailing at the Davenport library which is closed on Mondays because the Cheney library is closed today. There is only one computer so I don't have much time. We got our hair cut today at a good old-fashioned barber shop in town. It seemed a lot like Floyd's Barber Shop but not as friendly. It was cheaper than Great Clips.

Thanks for the Christmas package. I didn't realize you'd already sent it before I made my Christmas request. Today I'll be getting the package from Aunt Terri. I wanted to send out a lot of Christmas cards but I didn't have enough time and I was only able to send to you, Grandpa and Grandma, and Dave and Ya-ping, I think. I can't remember any more I sent.

I'm worried about the call home. We are going to be able to sleep in, and watch a Disney movie. The one we selected is nearly three hours long (guess which one it is!) so we had planned probably calling in the afternoon but we can probably move it up. Two o'clock there is one o'clock here so we may have to adjust our schedule a little bit.

It has continued to be cold and snowy. It was about sixteen degrees today and it feels very warm compared to the negative two we've had. On Saturday night we went to the Ritzville branch Christmas party. It was important for us because we had fourteen nonmembers and eight less-actives show up. We had to leave that night to Davenport before it got snowy and windy (the drifts here can be colossal) and we got about a half hour out of town when the newly-called first counselor of the branch presidency called because we had his keys. So, we had to turn around, and got home late. The next morning there were a lot of drifts. We had about twenty people at church. It was the third Sunday but the high counselor couldn't make it, so it was a short meeting. It was only worth having sacrament meeting. Davenport does a better job of clearing the roads than Spokane does, but the whole state of Washington is dumb. A bigger snowstorm in Utah wouldn't affect everything as much because they just plow and move on. But up here, it's like, "Oh, no! It snowed! What are we going to do? Guess we have to shut everything down." Last year they closed school for a week and I didn't see a plow until a week after the snowstorm. The Davenport Elementary School this week should have been closed because their boiler went out, so fish died, toilets froze, tiles broke, and cold ensued, but they merely started late, so everyone was mad.

My time is about up but I can talk to you more tomorrow.

Love,

Elder Melville." While Elder Love was emailing, I looked at books about religion. I found a book that said that the term "jack-Mormon" was an old pioneer term that derived from jackass because jack-Mormons brayed loudly but didn't pull their weight. I remember walking the streets of Davenport and telling that the Elder Love. I think we saw someone who said "Hi elders" but we didn't know him. That was surprising, because only members would talk like that and we didn't know him from our tiny branch. We left to go to Airway Heights. The snow was blowing across the road, and we saw a coyote.

 

We picked up Elder Colton and Elder Smith. I think they gave me a gift they had picked up for me at the mission office. It was from my aunt Terri; it was kind of a strange gift for a missionary, since it was a book of recipes to give to neighbors. But I think I looked through it and found a recipe for some candy I could easily make myself. We passed the Christmas tree lot, where they were giving away their trees for free. We went to Walmart, where it was packed. We went to the baking aisle so I could get white chocolate, milk chocolate, and semisweet chips for the candy I was going to make. After those errands, we headed out to Edwall to visit the Christensens for Christmas Eve. It was so foggy and snowy that it was hard to see where the ground ended and the sky started.

I can't exactly remember the sequence of events at the Christensens', but I think I kept saying we should leave because of the snow, but Elder Love didn't want to. But then it got to the point that Elder Love said, "You're going to be mad at me for this," and said that the snow was too deep for us to leave, since we were out in the middle of nowhere.Since the area was nothing but wheat fields, it meant that the snow was drifting really bad. So we prepared for an evening with the Christensens. Elder Love brought our presents in from the car. I played "Mary's Lullaby" on the piano, and Brother Christensen said that he was going to sing that song in sacrament meeting on Sunday but then the snow was too bad to go to church. Sister Christensen made eggnog and asked if we were weirded out by drinking raw eggs. I was a little bit, but not enough not to drink it. Elder Love really liked it, even though he generally didn't like eggnog. Sister Christensen made popcorn and gave us little bowls to eat them from while we played a dice game. Their toddler son/grandson got on my chair and sat next to me. It was funny. We did the nativity with the kids. Bailee (who was five) was Mary and Josh was Joseph and a doll was Jesus. Elder Love and I were shepherds. We sang songs, and I think I wanted to sing "Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus," which Bailee knew but Sister Christensen had never heard. I think we sang "We Three Kings." When we sang "Silent Night," Bailee was trying to sing fancy with lots of vibrato. BYUtv was showing past MoTab Christmas concerts; he was excited to see the King's Singers concert. I think he was also intrigued by the Sissel concert. I was interested in watching them too, but Bailee wanted me to play a pretending game with her. Eventually the kids had to go to bed. I got my P-day clothes from the car and changed into them. Sister Christensen liked my Snoopy shirt. I remember getting really hot that night and I didn't sleep very well on the Christensens' couch. I think Elder Love stayed up talking to Sister Christensen.

2007. That morning we went to the Regina building (stake center) so Elder Chun could play basketball. I stayed in the foyer and read scriptures; I read Luke 1 and 2. Elder Gammon came and was talking to me, asking me where I was from and what high school I went to and stuff. Then we rode with Elder Johnson and Elder Yarbrough to Walmart. They were listening to the Inside Out A Capella CD that had all the variations on "Once There Was a Snowman." I think Elder Johnson said the "Thriller" spoof was his favorite. Some members said hi to us at the store. That was my first P-day shopping experience, so I didn't know that was a common occurrence. Then we went to the Marxes', which is where the other elders lived and where Elder Chun had lived when he served in that area. I remember asking Elder Johnson if he could imagine one Steven Johnson serving a mission, but he said he had heard he was going to mission prep classes. The Marxes' family members started showing up, and they asked if we were staying for dinner. I didn't think we were. I didn't know why we were still there. Eventually we left to go to our dinner. It was a family in the Greenbluff Ward; I think their last name was Fisher. I think Elder Chun told the grandpa there that he liked his velcro shoes. I think we had a Mexican dish for dinner. I think we were in our car when Sister Fisher came out and gave us a bag of goodies. It was full of fruit and peanuts. We were glad it was healthy stuff, because we had plenty of candies and desserts. Then we went to the Joneses', a family in the Northpointe Ward. We had a little Christmas program with them, singing songs and such. They had a book they were going from; they had one of the stock Church nativity scene pictures in it. One of the activities was to sing "Away in a Manger"; I asked which version we were going to sing. They had a tradition of Santa ringing the doorbell and dropping of pajamas for everyone. They even got pajama pants for us. I think they gave Elder Chun mediums and me extra-large (maybe just large). All the kids were excited about their new pajamas, and they had to tell their son with mental deficiencies that he couldn't change his pants in front of everyone. Then we went to their kitchen and ate pumpkin pie (or maybe it was some other kind of pie). Brother Jones talked about the first Christmas on his mission, when he had to stay in his apartment listening to the Man from Snowy River soundtrack. He said that after that, whenever he would listen to it, all those homesick feelings he had would come back, so he couldn't listen to it.

2006. I wore Christmassy socks to church. After church we had a turkey dinner at our house and Susanne brought her boyfriend at the time, Darrin. I thought it was kind of an awkward dinner. That night I remember driving around someplace; I think we were giving out our neighbor gifts of Chex mix. My mom said she didn't like the lights some people had that said "Happy Birthday Jesus." Then we came home and Skyped with David, Ya-ping, and Preston.

2005. In the morning we went to Smith's Marketplace to buy food. Susanne was talking about a friend who didn't like shopping on Christmas Eve, but Susanne said she didn't see any problem with it during the day. I got a Disney Princess Sing-Along for Allie. Then we went home and made preparations for Christmas dinner while listening to Christmas CDs a student had given to my mom. Then we sat down to dinner. Later I made a Buche de Noel for my French class. I put a candy cane Lifesaver on top. After it was done, we all gathered in the living room and they let Allie open her gift from me. David asked Allie to show him so he could take a picture, but I don't think she did. Then I went down with Susanne and Allie to watch her new Sing-Along. Here are some random (some of them hilarious) pictures from the day.

2004. I wore my shirt with Snoopy in a Santa costume. My dad and I went to Shopko for some last-minute Christmas shopping. We looked at jewelry, and this might have been the time my dad got my mom ladybug earrings. Then we came home and my dad was thrilled that my sister-in-law's mother was gone. Sometime that night I made a Buche de Noel for French. I tried to smash some hard candies to sprinkle on top, but it didn't work out too well. (Now I think I'd be able to do it better.) I remember watching TV in Susanne's room. It was TV Land's Merrython, and they were showing the "Santa Visits and Stays and Stays" episode of Bewitched. I was carrying Allie when there was someone at the door. It was Hillary Ulmer. She gave me a Christmas present (a Charlie Brown ornament) and waved at Allie. I was watching Rankin/Bass specials on TV; I think David said "Oh no" when another one, Jack Frost, came on.

2003. At present, I can't remember anything from this year, even though I should. :(

2002. I remember eating pieces of a chocolate orange and watching A Bewitched Christmas (a VHS tape with two episodes of Bewitched) with my dad. Then that evening we took some homemade muffins to LDS Hospital and took them up to my sister, who was working. I remember being in the elevator and my mom offered some to other people working that night. Then my brother and I played Kirby Superstar on the Super Nintendo.

2001. I remember going with my dad to buy my mom's Christmas present. I wanted to get her Miracle on 34th Street. First we went to Kmart, but I think they only had VHS. Then we went to Shopko, but they were closed. I think we went to other closed places. We went to a video rental store (I don't remember if it was Blockbuster or Hollywood Video), where I bought a VHS copy of the movie since we couldn't find a DVD. When we got home, I think my mom was annoyed that we were doing her shopping on Christmas Eve. I wrapped the gift in toilet paper with green ribbon.

2000. We went to the homecoming of my cousin Cannon in Delta. We had a potluck dinner at some gym there. I think we had made M&M cookies with mint M&Ms. Then we drove home. It was really snowy, and we couldn't get up the driveway. I think we might have been listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. I think we made more cookies with the dough we had. I remember looking at the Mormonad cards in the New Era. Then we got in our hot tub.

1999. We had a turkey dinner with eggnog. I remember saying the eggnog (Southern Comfort?) was different, but David said it was probably more authentic. I was vegetarian, but I said, "It's winter," and I ate turkey. Everyone was shocked. Then I opened my Christmas present from the Ulmers. There were three keychains: Woody from Toy Story, a Pikachu and Pokeball, and a gorilla Pez dispenser. That night I was telling my sister about how I like to watch a non-Christmas movie so that I won't think about Christmas. I watched The Iron Giant.

1998. I started remembering all these events, but then I realized they probably happened on December 19. So I went and updated that post. On Christmas Eve morning, I was watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that I had borrowed from my grandparents. There was a knock at the door, and my little cousin Quin, who had spent the night, opened the door, and I was annoyed that he did, since it wasn't his house. It was Chantelle Christensen dropping off a present. 

1997. I think I set up my bed in the basement and turned on the battery-powered lights on the tree on top of the TV. I couldn't sleep well because I was so excited.

1996. This might have been the year that my siblings and I were downstairs looking at what was on TV. Channel 11 was showing Mr. Krueger's Christmas. They seemed kind of amused at the thought of watching it, but I think I did want to watch it. But maybe this was 1995.

1995. I remember my cousins coming over; I think when we came home, the wind had blown our door open. Our countdown Santa had its blocks as "01" and Jesse switched them around. He laughed when it said "10" but I remember thinking that it was exciting it was only one day. But I don't remember this happening on a Sunday, so maybe it was 1996.

1993. I remember cutting my foot on the place where our kitchen floor met the dining room carpet. I periodically cut myself there, and this was one of those times.

1988. Because of family videos, I know that we spent the night at my grandparents' house. But since I was less than three months old, I certainly don't actually remember this.

As always, I know I'll remember more things after I post this. Will I update this when I remember them? I don't know.

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