Jamie's Christmas Memories!

Well, Two days until Christmas, and I am so excited! The sad part is that it will just be myself, my mom and my dad, which is fine, but we also like to be surrounded by more family. We understand that Jeff and Lindsay can't travel this year, and we can't afford to travel there. And we switch of holidays with Joni's mother-in law and Christmas is theirs this year, but it will be somewhat lonely. Christmas isn't as much fun without little children running around. But I guess we will make due. I just remember all of the fun Christmas traditions we had growing up, that my parents still carry on, just we are all older now, I hope to carry on some of the traditions with my family, when I have one, which will hopefully be soon! I remember waiting until Dad said we could either come down the stairs, or up the stairs depending on where we had slept the night before. Dad would always get his video camera out and take pictures of the tree and all of the presents from Santa, before we could come in the living room. We always had our Santa presents unwrapped and all set up, because then we could see all of the great things he brought us and we would freak out and be so excited. Then as little kids, we would tear through the rest of our wrapped presents, and ask what else we got, when we were done opening all of them. That included me and Joni who were crazy and didn't take our time. Jeff on the other hand always took his time and was slow and patient.

After opening all the presents we wanted to open our stockings, but we couldn't do that until we ate breakfast. My mom would try to space things out as best she could, even though we went so fast. Mrs. Clause aka my mom, would have the best stockings for us. She went around to so many stores finding the cutest things to put in our stockings that were always a surprise, I always loved our stockings, and they cost a lot of money to put all that stuff together. Thanks mom. Also Santa aka Dad would be up late on Christmas Eve with mom putting all the presents together, I don't know how many tiny barbie things Dad put together for me, but I appreciate all of their hard work, on our Christmases. We always had the best Christmases, thanks to them.

One thing we will miss this year is going out to eat, with my mom's side of the family, we did that every year, and my Grandpa Jack would buy everyone dinner, last year he passed away in March, and last Christmas was the first year having that family dinner without him. Grandma Ruth, his wife, did come though, and she surprised us and bought us all dinner, that was nice of her. This year since we won't be in Pocatello, we won't be able to attend the dinner. Unfortunately that tradition is fading, because Grandpa's kids are all moving on, having their own Grandchildren and creating new traditions. I will never forget those many great dinners though, with all of us together. Although one sad thing every year was that Aunt Jill and her family couldn't attend because they live in Omaha, NE, but we did always think of them and miss them.

Well hopefully this year will still turnout good. I would like to say to all of my family and extended family, I love you all and miss you all, and wish you a very Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!