the christmas story.

after great anticipation all year long christmas weekend had finally arrived!  this year christmas fell on a saturday so we had an instant 3-day weekend without even trying.  with all the running around and work that richard and i had been doing we hadnt had a lot of time to do the few traditions we had started the year before.  we also hadnt been able to spend much uninterrupted time together either.  so we decided to squish everything we could into the weekend. 

we started by sleeping in friday morning, that alone is an amazing start to any 3-day weekend.  richard had told me the night before that he a had a last minute thing or 2 he had to pick up that morning.  while i giggled a lot-last year he had waited until christmas eve to buy all of his gifts-i decided i would get up and go for a run that morning then.  feeling very accomplished when i returned i decided to reward myself by registering for my next 1/2 marathon in nashville, tn!

richard hadnt gotten back quite yet and i needed to run over to the grocery store to pick up our 2 last minute things for breakfast the next morning.  as i headed out to the store i called my mom to see if she needed anything since she was cooking the next day, bad idea.  30 minutes and $25 later i returned home to spend the rest of the day with my love. 

later that evening we made the trek to the las vegas' north pole at the speedway for the gift of lights.  we had both gone for the 1st time the previous year and totally fell in love, definitely making it a tradition for us.  this year there was no line, hooray, so we drove through right away.  it was beautiful.  not nearly as good as the year before at sunset park, but it was fun to just be together with the 2 of us.

we headed back into town towards the conservatory inside the bellagio, one of my absolutely favorite places on the planet.  i still had not seen tiffany to give her, her christmas gift and we were trying to make it happen that night.  we ended up meeting in a del taco parking lot because we couldnt figure out anywhere else, weird i know.  after getting back on the road and getting closer to the bellagio, we accidentally picked the wrong lane and got boxed out of turning in.  of course it took forever to turn back around and make it through all the lights, by now which richard was getting pretty frustrated.  we made our way into the garage and it literally took almost a 1/2 hour to find a parking spot!  just as we were about to give up, one opened for us finally.  and of course it was worth every minute of wait...

 by this time it was darn near 830p and i had originally planned to cook that night once we got home.  fully prepared to go home and make fajitas, richard kept hinting he didnt want to wait that long.  so we did the most logical thing instead...pick up raisin canes.  its not richards favorite place, so anytime he wants to go i am so on board.  we made our way home to watch one of my all time favorite christmas movies, the family stone.  i had finally convinced richard to watch it with me.  we sat down to watch and before i even knew what happened richard is yelling and damn near throwing his food out the window, asking me if i like the canes sauce.  apparently he didnt see that it came on the sandwhich and he likes his things super plain, not even ketchup.  he stormed off into the kitchen after i told him no, not knowing, to turn on the oven to make something else.  i kept saying that i would eat the the sandwich with the sauce, i just put ketchup on top anyway and he kept saying you said you didnt like the sauce.   finally he slowed down long enough to listen and let me take the sandwich he didnt like and let him have my strips.  between the traffic and the order mess up it was not going well, it was better, but he still seemed so mad.  we finished the movie, i of course cried, and was ready for bed.  richard wanted to stay up because he always went to bed late and he still had to wrap all of my presents.  we decided to set an alarm for the next morning at 1030am to give us plenty of time to get up, make breakfast, take our time opening presents, and hang out for a bit. 

however, long about 9am i was ready to get up and open presents!  i mean it is christmas.  instead i decided to go in and make breakfast to keep myself busy.  that lasted about a half hour and i decided it was time to wake up richard, that didnt go too well.  he was not excited about me waking him up to open presents at all, he kept trying to convince me to go back to bed, i was wayyyy too awake for that.  so i let him sleep and went to try to upload pictures from the night before.  he came out a few minutes later and told me he was awake enough, we could open presents.  so as i started to bring the breakfast stuff over i found him curled up on the couch under the blanket barely willing to even open his eyes.  so not ok.  instead i made him sit on the floor with me and the bacon that didnt wiggle.

we began with stockings, something i struggled with the most to fill.  turns out we bought each other the exact same thing, silly candy and beautiful cards!  we continued on to more wrapped boxes filled with cartoon character t-shirts, flasks, and electric toothbrushes for him.  and minions, disney character mugs, ladybug girls, and sparkly earrings for me.  both of us were beyond excited about our gifts!  we ended up opening a little faster than we expected and once finished just looked at each other like now what?  so we cleaned up breakfast and decided to go back to bed before heading over to my parents house.

a few hours later we loaded up my car with the gifts and made our way up to my parents house to have christmas part 2.  we had to make sure we came over before erik and his family got there so we could do our family christmas.  it was so fun!  we had multiple gifts for all of us and they were all really thought out, the best was my minnie mouse seatbelt wallet.  as we were leaving the apartment we had to make sure we grabbed the last of my dads tools to take back, and i made the joke, wouldnt it be so funny if the presents under my parents tree were tools.  i told him though, thats how you really know you made it into the family because thats what we always bought my dad. 

erik and donna came over a little while later to help finish making dinner and so we could finally eat.  we had very entertaining dinner conversation that kyle holding me back at one point and richard defending me at another point.  after that i tried to drive moms car to the movie, it didnt fly well.  quite a few years ago the four of us started going to a movie together on christmas.  we had gotten old enough to not have lots of toys, so we would get bored with nothing to do.  last year we picked a boy movie in sherlock homes, this year we picked a girl movie in tangled.  it was really cute, very disney, very cute.

richard and i made our way home after going back to my parents house for pie, we had been there most of the day and were ready to go home.  or so i thought.  richard ended up deciding to go to matts house after we got home for a few hours.  i was tired anyway i guess and just wanted to spend time on my couch, while thinking about such a successful day.

this was our first christmas living together.  we got to start our own traditions and do them the way we want.  it was like a real grown up christmas, our way:)