Christmas - 2

Well, apparently Blogger got the hungry and ate S's Christmas post. CHOMP! Thankfully, the web is anything but up to date, and we were able to snatch a cached copy of it from the Island of Misfit Posts. Without further ado, in all of its Christmas-y glory, I give you, "Christmas - 2: The Return of 'Christmas.'"

Christmas was a bit wonky this year. Before we completely moved into the new place we put up a Christmas tree at the new place. And it was a fantastic Christmas tree - all fat and tall and fluff-ity and delicious smelling. It was a few days before we put lights on it. It turned out like this...

Yeah... we didn't have enough lights. So we just took them off. But now we know to buy more lights for next year!

The Tuesday before Christmas I lost my driver's license and credit card at the mall. I checked everywhere in the mall and couldn't find it. I canceled my card that night and took some other preventative measures. And then on Christmas Eve Day I found out that someone had turned them in! It was a Christmas miracle!

We both worked on Christmas Eve Day and ate Panda Express for dinner (thanks Mom and Dad! - also the fast food on Christmas Eve is a shout out to the R family tradition at Arby's!). We were getting ready for bed when we heard some music. We thought it was just the neighbor downstairs with his nightly Bollywood (seriously every night our floors vibrate from it). But it was a different sound. T looked out the back window and saw a parade! So we tossed on shoes and went outside to check it out. It didn't matter that I was already in my pajamas because so were half of the people outside!

It was the Magical Christmas Caroling Truck! It's a little parade with floats and 200 volunteer singers and dancers that goes caroling around our neighborhood on Christmas Eve every year since 1984 (check out the fact sheet link at the bottom of their website). There are a lot of apartments on our street so there were tons of people out following them. T took some quick pictures on his mighty mighty iphone.

The train with Mr. and Mrs. Claus even had smoke coming from it! There was a snowman and elves and people handing out candy canes and beautiful Christmas songs. It was wonderful. It definitely made it feel like Christmas. Mostly it just felt normal. Like something that would happen in Utah or a small town and not Southern California.

Here's how our apartment looked Christmas morning:

We had a perfectly lovely Christmas, though we missed our families terribly.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

P.S. Last Christmas T gave me a sparkly ring and asked me to marry him!

P.P.S. I was exhausted on New Year's Eve and fell asleep at 11! On New Year's Day we went to Universal City Walk for dinner (thanks T's parents!).