the beans: Christmas

I've already spoken my piece about the real reason for Christmas.
Now for the presents side.
Did you know I get six Christmases this year?

We did Black Friday this year. (My first time ever!) The day before Thanksgiving I convinced David that we should get an xbox. We went to Walmart on Thanksgiving (LOVED the late night thing. Waking up early doesn't sound fun.) and got in line and waited for forever to check out with our xbox. We had decided this would be our "big" gift for each other. But of course we couldn't wait to open it and we have been playing it ever since. I still have absolutely no buyers remorse over getting it. I mostly got it for the Kinect and I love love LOVE playing it with David/friends. We almost packed it in our suitcase to take home to NY to play over Christmas break too.

There was a fun dessert party (with wayyy too much sugar) with some of my most favorite people ever. (Jessi, darling, you were missed.) We had a secret santa gift exchange and it was so fun to see the gifts given. It is so funny how well we know each other.

stolen off FB - Thanks, Alisa!
Also, my hair is getting so long. Hair cut, anyone?

Monday night we did all our packing and we opened a couple presents (one I wanted him to have to use while I finished working for the next couple days). Then the next day we each opened another one. We also had another Christmas opening presents from his family before we left because we didn't want to take any with us just to turn around and bring them back. Plus we had Christmas with my family in NY too. It kind of takes the anticipation out of it, but it's not like we are seven years old again and can't sleep on Christmas Eve. We actually helped with filling some stockings.

After we finished opening presents and sat amidst a floor of wrapping paper with everyone excited about what they received, all I could think about was how we are SO blessed.

We have enough to live comfortably on (and we really don't make much money now but it still works out so well) and we could still give presents to those we love. I love both parts of the process - getting stuff is always fun and giving is even better because it is so fun to buy things for other people, even when you're not sure what to get them.

Hopefully these feelings of gratefulness continue to last well into the new year. We've got lots of exciting things planned for our life and even when things go wrong (which they inevitably will because of how much I keep trying to plan for them) I just need to remember how great we really have it.

Even when I get presents that look like this: