Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!! I hope that everyone is having a great day and getting to spend some time with their families. My Christmas celebration is in three phases: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas.

Yesterday began the first of my celebrations. Both of my parents had to work yesterday, so I was all by myself for the first half of the day. I had to get things together for our Christmas Eve dinner. Starting about four years ago, when we stopped doing Christmas with my mom's family, my mom decided to start a new tradition of inviting my Mimi over for Christmas Eve. We decided to do this because my aunts and uncles usually had her over to their houses for Christmas Day; we also did this because she likes going to early Christmas Mass at Bison, and she doesn't like driving at night. When she comes over, we have a wondrous Christmas meal, she gets to open her presents from us, and then we go to Mass. This year was just as great as every other year. For our meal, we had Garlic-Baked Salmon (my new favorite recipe), baked sweet potatoes, asparagus, salad, rolls, and cheesecake pie (the easy version). It was a FEAST! I loved it! Because of time limitations and my love of cooking, I prepared the entire meal as a kind of gift for everyone. Really, it wasn't that big of a deal, because everything went together quickly and was fairly stress-free. After our meal, (we didn't get to eat the cheesecake pie because we were too full) we went and sat in the living room together, and just talked. I had a nice chat with my Mimi. I love talking to her, and I truly cherish my time with her.

After we chatted for a while, I went and got ready for Mass. I donned my pretty sweater dress, new shoes, and curly hair! I so love my curly hair, but it's kind of a hassle to get it that way, so I only get it for special occasions. Like usual, I was a server at Mass, but I'm okay with that. My job was to be the thoropher (spelling??), which is a fancy way to say that I was in charge of the incense. I was pleased with myself, because I managed to NOT kill myself in my shoes! I largely regretted wearing those shoes about five minutes into Mass. I enjoyed Mass, although everyone didn't get candles like usual (that was my favorite part). After Mass, I got to see little Zane, who was just as adorable as I remembered! After we were done at Mass, we took Mimi home. When we got home, I happened to see the last 30 minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life", and I now want to see the rest of the movie! I also started watching the Christmas Eve Mass from St. Peter's in Rome, but I didn't make it past the 2nd reading. It was hard for me to stay awake at that point because, although I knew what was happening, I didn't, because it was all in Latin, and the narrator who translated it into English's voice was about as exciting as Bill Stein's, if that tells you anything. Needless to say, my mom woke me up around 1:15 to have me go to bed.

I'll add some more posts later to fill in the excitement of today, and, eventually, tomorrow!