Christmas 2009

Aside from the New Year's countdown, I look forward to the Christmas countdown. Now, not the 12 Days of Christmas count down, but just waiting till Christmas morning. It's the crowning event of the year, the milestone for another 365 days.

This Christmas has become one of my favorites. I'd like to think my genius 12 Days of Christmas was the reason behind it, but regardless, I love the 12 activities that got me all Christmas-ish. I'm so happy that I have a wonderful husband to spend this wonderful season with he helped to make this year special.

Now. Down to the presents for the day.

I'm not going to name them all, just a few. Brett and I got each other shoes, this seems to be a standard for gift giving between us. We love shoes. Brett got a fancy basketball, a drill, and a bunch of gift cards for his favorite food places that I don't seem to like. I got some clothes for Christmas, new makeup brushes, a few gift cards, a Coach purse, and some books.

We also get some Bresca gifts. We got a new dining table, it's actually a small pub table, but it's super cute. We got an air mattress for camping, Rockband Beatles, and some cash.

So thank you everyone for all the gifts. Hope you all had a wonderful day.

And the 12th day of Christmas...

And the 12th day of Christmas... was the busiest Christmas Eve I have ever experienced.

I love this time of year so much, but today made me slightly consider going on a cruise next year. I'm not joking. Between my family gatherings and Brett's family gatherings, we end up at at least different ten different parties over the holidays. By the time Christmas Eve is here all I want to do is relax and enjoy the holiday.

Enough whining though.

After a slight break down on my part Christmas Eve was wonderful. Nothing super crazy happened it was just a good evening spent with family. We visited with Brett's family over dinner and some Christmas stories and visited with my Dad's family. We got some good laughs with the yearly gift exchange, opened presents and headed home for the night.

Now... Bed time cause Santa is on his way.

Eleven

Christmas is almost here. I am so excited. I really need Brett to open his presents. I'll tell you why later. He reads this blog sometimes.

Tonight we stole a tradition from some random person on the internet. I found this forum where people shared all their family Christmas traditions. I feel a bit bad for not sharing some of mine, but I was too lazy and didn't want to register.

So there is this couple that plays Santa for each other. They go to a store together, split up, and buy stocking stuffers for each other. So that is exactly what Brett and I did. We had a $15 dollar limit on our purchase for each stocking. Buying stocking stuffers for my Brett was hard. I mean the stuffers are fun random things, but there are more fun random things for girls then there are for boys. I was worried about not filling his stocking, but I went home and packed it just fine. Actually I really had to stuff that stocking.

We also made some homemade chocolate and wrapped a few remaining gifts. I enjoyed the hot chocolate, Brett wasn't too impressed but he picked out the recipe so I didn't feel too bad.

And that is all.

One more day left till Christmas.

Santa is coming to town people.

"SANTAAA! I KNOW HIM!" -Buddy the Elf

10: The Villalobos Family Christmas Dinner

Every year about a week before Christmas my mom's side of the family has a giant Christmas party. A Christmas party that is probably way too involved for most families. The party is a bit complicated. There's a hidden set of rules for the party, it usually stresses way too many people out, and sometimes when it comes to the white elephant gift exchange people get mad. But... this party is an ongoing tradition, one that has been going on since I was born. It has evolved since its forst year, but as much as some of us hate the stress and weird themed foods, we can't call it quits.

I have a bad memory about being little. But one of my strongest Christmas memories was the year it was my turn to help the cousins serve food at the family Christmas dinner. Back then we didn't have themed parties. It was a normal Christmas dinner. Everyone dressed up. Grandma and Grandpa did most of the cooking.

After Grandma died we decided to continue the Christmas dinner tradtion. The first year, we had this giant luau party complete with a cooked pig, Hawaiian dancers, fire dancers, and grass skirts. We may never top that first year, It had been by far the best party. i'm sure that my Grandma has a lot to do with that.

But for this year we celebrated Christmas in the Hold Land: Israel.

So the food coordinated with the theme, as did the gift exchange. Popular gifts were dates, figs, and a tree of life necklace. Nick contributed an Israeli newspaper, it was free. Brett gave a book titled 1003 Things About the Jewish Religion and I gave a travel and culture book of Israel. We scored with a $5 dradle shaped Target gift card, a box of plant smelling gum, and some sort of orange soda.

And that pretty much sums up the tenth day of Christmas.

PS, my family is way too loud to even yell over. Love you guys.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

... a drive by of the Temple lights.

We kinda skimped on the 12 Days of Christmas today. I after cooking all day yesterday and starting a new job today I was 100% tired. We already made it to the Temple lights earlier this month. So we drove down to the Temple and attempted to walk the grounds, but we couldn't find a parking spot, I was cold, whining, and didn't feel like walking. So we drove around the entire temple and called it good.

Maybe I ruined the 12 Days of Christmas, but you don't understand how I am when I get overly tired. I had to come home and take a 15 minute nap just so we could run to Target and eat diner.

Tomorrow is a bigger project, the annual Villalobos family Christmas dinner. It's sort of a big thing and it tends to be a bit stressful, but it is always way fun.

Four days till Christmas.

No. 8

There are a number things I learned today.

1. Hosting a holiday dinner is expensive.

2. If you are having a full on meal, you will be cooking all day.

3. A spring form pan results in a baked good without sides.

4. My mom makes cooking look easy.

5. One oven isn't enough, but it is feasible.

6. Scalding milk is almost boiling milk.

7. You need a cooking game plan.

8. Don't bake a dessert if you haven't already tried it. Duh.

9. I no longer aspire to become a chef.

I wasn't expecting to learn any of these things.

Even though our desserts sucked, I think our dinner came out good. I love cooking in the kitchen with Brett. He is so good at it. He's efficient, he catches my mistakes when I try to double recipes, and he makes it a million times less stressful.

We had six guests. Josh and Nikki (sorry if I spelled that wrong), Eric and Lauren, and then Jordan and Jaymus were each others dates.

On the menu.

Salad

Ham

Mashed Potatoes

Stuffing

Yams

Jello

Green Beans & Mushrooms

Corn

Cheesy Peppered Rice

Rolls

Rice Crispies

Chocolate Cheesecake

Dr. Pepper

Water

Sprite

Sparkling Cider

This took eight hours to cook and we still have left overs. So I'm packing lunch all week long. Feel free to come over.

Merry Christmas

Seven

This is our masterpiece. I believe it is a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath graham cracker house with a garage. It was built with homemade frosting which contains one pound of powdered sugar. It has a wonderful fence dividing the front and back yards and the snowman is falling over.

By the time we finished this thing we were sick to our stomaches. I can't remember the last time I ate frosting in such large quantities. Probably never.

We had a lot of fun making this. I personally was super excited. I haven't made a gingerbread house since elementary school. When you make one at school they are tiny and made out of a milk carton and they come out really ugly. So I was very please with how ours came out.

Anyways, that is all.

On the sixth day of Christmas...

I can't believe that my favorite Christmas movie came from the decade of shoulder pads, frizzy hair, and acid washed jeans. How does this happen?

A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas movie set in 1940, narrated by a much older Ralph Parker as he recalls his most memorable Christmas. In this particular year Ralph is nine years old and wants an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200 shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock for Christmas. The story is about his quest to get his BB rifle as he tells about all the events that transpired that Christmas: the Scut Farkus Affair, Chinese Christmas dinner,  and the ultimate triple dog dare.

I absolutely love this movie.

Brett had never seen it, so it was a must for our countdown this year. On Sunday, Brett went ahead and requested it from Netflix so that we would have it for sure by our sixth day. It came in the mail on Wednesday, I set it on top of the dvd player and left it there for Friday, today.

After dinner Brett put the movie in the dvd player as we got candy and pillows out to watch the movie. I'm heading back to the couch and notice that the TV is playing pretty music. I look at the dvd menu and see the title Christmas Story. I watch a few random scenes that are playing on the dvd menu and see a little boy ice skating. Then a close up of a little boy. Then something close to a winter wonderland. By now I am trying to remember what part of Ralph Parker's story had a winter wonderland in it.

I get on my Netflix account to see exactly what movie Brett ordered. It was called Christmas Story and it had no Scut Farkus Affair in the movie. It was about Santa as a kid....

Meanwhile.

Brett is in the other room and I start shouting, "You ruined the 12 days of Christmas! This is the wrong movie." He comes in to see the Netflix account and starts laughing as he realizes the mistake he made. Lucky for him our 12 days of Christmas were not completely ruined. A Christmas Story was available for instant viewing from  Netflix.

We hooked the laptop up to the TV and started day six.  

RedBrick Realty

I am happy to report that I found a job and I start Monday.

Yay! I will have a regular schedule, with regular hours, and I won't have to be sitting at home anymore. I'll be working as an administrative assistant for RedBrick Realty and hopefully I'll be super busy. Let's face it I love being busy.

As for hair, well I need to figure that out. As soon as I get settled into this new job I'll get around to making that work.  I am thinking about working Saturdays and maybe one night, somewhere. Like I said, I need to figure it out at some point.

Anyways, I am super excited.

Five Gold Rings...

I think sometimes all of us get wrapped up in the retail version of Christmas. We make a list of things we'd like to get for Christmas and make a list of what to buy others for Christmas. And a good number of us might stress about all the parties we have to host or be in attendance at. 

We have to remember that this isn't exactly about giving and receiving colorfully wrapped presents. To be honest, it isn't even about spending time with friends and family at Christmas parties. However, these things certainly do make Christmas, the season of love, more enjoyable.

Tonight we watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas. It's a 1980 short movie starting Jimmy Stewart. I have pulled a clip from the movie. If you'd like to see the whole thirty minutes of it, it is available on YouTube.

I hope as the rest of us countdown to Christmas day we will remember why we celebrate the season of love.

Merry Christmas.

Day Four

Let's start by saying that I am just a bit confused on the definition of a needy child. Now I don't want to sound like an insensitive jerk and I am going to apologize right now if I offend anyone, cause I might.

We decided that it would be fun to purchase gifts for a toy drive of sorts. We participated in Jam the Bus for 101.5 two years ago and had fun picking out little kid toys. This year, no Jam the Bus. So we decided to go with the ever popular Christmas Angels program.

We got down to the mall, found the trees, and started flipping tags over. Bicycle, Ripstick, cologne, MP3 player, MP4 player, Wii system, paintball gun, basketball hoop with ball, PSP games, PS3 system, PS3 games, Wii games, digital camera, God of War I or God of War III for PS3 (not God of War II, already owns it). After reading about five different tags my eyes got wide and I started to wonder what happened to kids wanting Barbies, a football, Legos, a skate board, an art set, Hot Wheels.... This is the part where I got confused.

Brett comes to me and asks who these gifts are supposed to be for. We both thought it was a program for kids who might not get a Christmas. Kids who were from low income families, kids in foster homes maybe. But what I don't get is if a family is needy and can't afford Christmas presents, why is their kid asking for me or anyone else to buy them God of War I or God of War III for PS3 (not God of War II, already owns it). If they want the game they obviously already have the system. Are you following me?

So I have officially questioned the Christmas Angels program. I have a friend who used to work for the Salvation Army and I hear that she quit because of shady business. I guess employees were putting their kids names up on the tree. I dunno. I feel bad for judging the kid who wants PS3 games. Hopefully my husband and I won't be punished for dipping out on the Christmas Angels program.

We ended up at Target and purchased Candyland. Tomorrow I plan to take it to a donation center for the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

On the third day of Christmas...

Our little family of two experienced a tragedy this last summer. One we still have not quite recovered from.  It was a bittersweet marker in our lives together. In the end, it was just the right time. And life goes on.

We sold out.

We took a government bribe of $3500.

We replaced yellow and red for dark silver paint.

We made a decision.

We said goodbye to our faithful Trans Am, Red Dragon.

And we never stopped loving him.

To honor him this year we gave him our third day of Christmas. On today's agenda we purchased our yearly Christmas ornaments. This is a tradition my mom started that I have carried through to my new family.

To honor Red Dragon we purchased Hot Wheels cars and turned them into ornaments.

Red Dragon. We miss you and love you. We know you rumble on in race car heaven. Here's to you. May your memory live on with Christmas Spirit.

Assignment No. 2

"Buddy the Elf. What's your favorite color?"

Today's countdown activity was watching Elf. 

If you are reading this and haven't seen the movie Elf then I invite you to just pretty much stop reading. I can't be friends with you if you haven't seen Elf.

But, if you are still reading and don't know what I am talking about... then go rent the wonderful movie starting Will Ferrell and get your Christmas Spirit on. This movie is awesome. The first thirty minutes are just randomly funny and Will Ferrell looks absolutely ridiculous wearing yellow tights. It's about an elf named Buddy that doesn't realize he is a human in an elf world, aka North Pole. Once he gets the clue, he ventures to New York City to find his biological father and save Christmas. I won't elaborate anymore cause obviously you haven't seen it and we can't be friends until you have.

Now to my friends (those of you, if any, who read my blog). Please feel free to share your favorite one liners and full scenes from the movie Elf.

This concludes the second day of Christmas report.

Merry Christmas to all.

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

Chocolate and cookies!

I couldn't have asked for a better first day of Christmas. Brett and I started our advent calender today.

I have the best personal baker ever. When it comes to treats in the kitchen Brett is practically a pro. This has to be a result of all the treats his family makes. It is also a result of all the cookie favors I ask for.

Today we made snicker doodle cookies and two batches of fudge, regular fudge and toffee fudge. Baking in the kitchen with my husband was fun. We didn't make too much of a mess and we had fun laughing about Mariah Carey's Joy to the World song.

After baking we went to our stake's Christmas concert. This was the perfect kick off for our Twelve Day of Christmas. Brett had to be a professional usher, so I sat through most the concert by myself. It was AMAZING.

This wasn't like a little performance. They were dead serious about it. They auditioned their performers, had a mixing board, giant speakers, and a full orchestra. They did prelude music with a children's choir. The kids harmonized. HARMONIZED. I've never seen kids do that. A number of Christmas songs were performed including Let It Snow, Feliz Navidad, Jingle Bells, We Three Kings, and three parts of Handel's Messiah. These people could sing. Wow. My favorite performance was I Believe in Christ. It was so strong and powerful. They could pass for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was so good.

To end our day, we shared our baked treats with our parents and siblings. My brother showed some impressive self control with the treats we brought. He definitely wanted some and watched as everyone else got multiple helpings. He asked me to put a tiny piece of fudge on plate and he later added half a cookie. Then he told me that he wasn't going to eat till after I left cause if I was gone with the treats he couldn't have a second helping. He did great.

Anyways. Happy third night of Hanukah.

Christmas No. 3

Christmas is the best. It's by far my favorite time of year. People are so nice. Everyone seems to love everyone else. The weather is nice and cold, for the most part. It's the season of love.

This is our third Christmas together. The first Christmas was a bit hectic. We shopped together for our own Christmas presents, and spent way too much money on each other. We weren't sure how to make Christmas function as a married couple. Our second Christmas we were living with Brett's parents, and at the time his sister Krista was visiting with her husband Andy and their kids. That year was blurry. Kids keep you busy. We played lots of Rockband that year.

So this year.

Christmas No. 3.

I wanted to start a few traditions. Do something to really get us in the Christmas Spirit. My family is big on traditions. We watch It's a Wonderful Life while decorating the tree, we always buy a real tree, we have a yearly giant themed dinner party. But trying to start Christmas traditions with a party of two isn't so easy. I imagine having kids simplifies this, but I don't have any.

So Brett and I started with decorations, shopping, and Mariah Carey Christmas.

Then we added our own version of the twelve days of Christmas. I will now introduce you to the Day Family Advent Calender. Let's hope it's around for years to come.

So here is how it works. Obviously each day you open one and eat a candy. But our calender has a Christmas-ish activity for each day. Finding 12 things to do each day for two people took some serious brain storming. So I plan to report for the next 12 days on the what we did. I figured this would be the best way to get us in the spirit and help us create traditions at the same time. Feel free to steal some of our ideas, I had to use ideas from other people too.

I want this Christmas this year to mean a bit more than Rockband and presents. I love Christmas because of all the time I get to spend with my family. I love Christmas because I love Jesus. This year I am determined to have Christmas be a happy, wonderful, family packed, Jesus loving Christmas.

Dear Saturday

Dear Saturday.

We have got some issues that need to be solved.

First, don't be so cold in the morning, this is probably more of a weather issue than a Saturday issue, it makes it nearly impossible to get out of bed when my apartment is somewhere in the 40s. Second, please try to hold all my calls, text messages, and alarms till I am actually out of bed. If you don't, I'll lay in bed for an hour trying to ignore these forms of communication while simultaneously trying to sleep. However, sleep won't come, refer to issue one. Third, I totally expect you to have breakfast ready for me when I do finally get out of bed. Let's face it Saturday, your day is usually pretty busy and I need a good meal to get me though it. Finally, please and have my chores done the day before, it makes my day much more bearable.

Thanks for your time Saturday. I would love it we could come to some sort of solution to these problems, I'll compromise.

Thanks.

Chesca.

Unexpected Situations, New Obsessions, and Good Deals

I guess I am a liar. I promised a post weeks ago. Better late then never. Ooops.

Yesterday, when I was thinking about the promise I made to post, I realized that I'm bad at posting because life right now is just kinda slow. I don't have a ton to report on. I have three minor categories of life to expound on. That's pretty much all you are going to get.

Unexpected situations. This category is pretty much an all encompassing title for the events in my life.

No one expects to get sick: unless you are sharing a lollipop with a sick person. Brett and I got sick. Not due to a lollipop. Brett decided to go help out in 5th grade where his sister teaches. Apparently all but nine of the kids were out at once due to illness. Brett has his own personal version of the swine flu, again, which included massive headaches, a vicious cough, a sniffly nose, and a few body aches. Several days later I got sick. Just a basic cold followed by five days of having no voice.

Meanwhile, I have been working at the salon. It's slow, I'm enjoying it though. After working in this particular salon/studio for about three weeks, the lady I rented from called and asked if I wanted to take over her lease. Now, I knew that she eventually wanted someone to take it over, but I was thinking at least six months from now. Unexpected. Anyways, Brett and I are looking into taking her up on her offer. I'll keep you updated on that. Next.

This category is probably my favorite. New Obsessions.

About three years ago my supervisor from Best Buy tried to get me onto the whole TV shows bandwagon. I had already committed my Monday TV time to How I Met Your Mother and Heroes and he wanted me to try getting into The Office. So I tried. I started with season one, watched two episodes, and had about had it with the rudeness of Michael Scott, I handed seasons one and two back to him and said yeah right. Well these days I still find time where I am bored out of my mind, so I put my Netflix account to good use. I had a The Office marathon. I started with season one at 1AM Sunday morning and got caught up with about five episodes of season six Wednesday afternoon. I didn't get much done around the house for a few days. Needless to say Brett is also hooked on the shows, but is taking his time getting through the five seasons we have missed. We often find ourselves talking about Jim and Pam and sometimes find instances to quote Michael with a "that's what she said" joke.

Obsession number two is all mine. I love decorating my apartment and can't wait to have a home to decorate. So as part of decorating my home I love fixing furniture, art, and making pillows for my home. My mom had acquired a bench that had a broken leg, everything else was in good shape, but the color didn't go with what I had going on. So my mom and I reupholstered it. It came out so good! So if anyone had furniture you are thinking about getting rid of, don't.

And finally good deals. These always make me smile.

My aunt had called one Friday morning, waking me up to a Nyquil hangover and no voice, to tell about some great furniture that was at the Mesa Auction. I drug my butt out of bed and my mom and I met her down at the auction house to see what they had. So much freakin cute furniture. So we planned out what furniture we wanted to try to get and how much we were willing to pay. Seriously, I feel like I stole the furniture, I got such a good deal.

I picked up some nice filing cabinets that go for $100 a piece at Ikea. I got three for $25 each. I also fell in love with a funky lamp for $35. So here is how the story goes. I had to work the night of the auction. I had sent my mom and my deal expert aunt to go get these filling cabinets and lamp for me. After I had finished doing hair for the night, Brett and I hurried our butts down to the auction to pick up our filling cabinets and to check out the rest of the auction. Brett was shocked at how nice some of the furniture was and how cheap it was going for. My mom was eyeing this curio cabinet/china hutch. She had decided though that she wasn't going to bid on it. After this beautiful cabinet has sold for $265 the auctioneer had said that there were two more available new in box to anyone else who wanted them. My aunt and I were very bad influences and panicked my mom with the amazing deal and she bought it. We later found out that this curio cabinet sold for $2200 at retail. We saw a Pioneer Elite TV go for $900. The bidding started at $500 and no one was taking it. I wanted to bid on it so bad. These deals we just so crazy.

I also got a peak at my Christmas present. Well, it wasn't a peak. I had also been eyeing this pub table. So freakin' cute. But, I didn't want to spend any more money and decided that if it went over $150 I wasn't going to bid on it. It started too high for me. So there goes my aunt bidding on it. It was sad. Then she won the bid. Being the brat that I am, I pretty much asked for her to leave it to me in her will. My mom then looks at my aunt and says, "Should I tell her?" which totally made me curious. My aunt was upset and stuck her tongue out at me. And then my mom tells me that she just bought my Christmas present. I was so excited! I apologized to my aunt, she really wanted to table too. Unfortunately, Christmas is still weeks away, so my table isn't in my home right now. It was fun though. A bit of an adrenaline rush.

That is all I have to report. We have family in town for Thanksgiving, so maybe I'll post some pictures of my niece and nephews.