Merry Christmas!

The most wonderful time of the year...ahhh...
A break from the grind of school, at last! Time to do whatever I want for two weeks!
Ok, so, maybe it's down to a week and a half. I've squandered half a week already. And I still have homework, namely reading The Picture of Dorian Gray for my book report. I'm actually enjoying it, but I feel as if all of the characters are rather childish and whiny. I imagine that my friend Charlotte would enjoy ranting about this book if she was the one reading it.

Shealinn and I had a fun-filled Christmas Eve. I slept in pretty late (courtesy of my crazy idea to stay up as late as I could for no reason), then dragged Shealinn into doing a photo shoot with me. That took forever, especially since I was the one running around trying to rearrange the furniture and search for our little white fan. After we finished, the sun was already going down. Christmas Eve was ending already?? Time to get ready for our neighborhood illumination/iluminary/whatever they call it.

It's a wonderful tradition in our neighborhood to take white paper bags with sand and a candle in the bottom and place them along the median strips by the sidewalks. The result is a beautiful flickering display of glowing lights in the quiet of the night. Shealinn and I took a walk around the block later that night to enjoy the display. But before that, we partook in the chaos of making dinner, cookies, and messily assembling the gingerbread house. Regarding the gingerbread house, all I could say to Mom was, "It's not pretty, but at least it'll be tasty." This was the first year she made us assemble the pieces. I think she regrets it now.

After the aforesaid walk, Shealinn and I sat in the basement, decorating presents with bows and ribbons. Add some Cody Simpson music. And some belittling insults about each other's decorating skills. And random guesses at what presents we were getting. And hysterical laughter. Eventually we got tired (it was close to 11) and began slapping bows on the last presents instead of painstakingly decorating them.

Finally, after we prepared to retire to bed, Shealinn came into my room and we commenced our final tradition of the day: reading a few Christmas stories from our old children's Christmas story book.

Yeah, I can't wait for Christmas, and I really should be going to bed. I'm definitely getting excited as if I was little kid again.

Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday Jesus!

~K