A Christmas Story (or maybe a few...)

I am actually writing a blog post in the same week as an event.  This is proof that miracles do occur during the holiday season.

Since I just started my new job in October, I don't have a ton of vacation to my name and so I didn't take my usual 2 week work hiatus.  I also did a pretty pitiful job of photographically documenting this holiday season's festivities.  With these 2 facts combined, you would think that would make my post short and sweet, wouldn't you?  Think again my little crumpets.  I love myself some Christmas! 

Ryan & I's Christmas (December 23rd)
This Christmas was the first Ryan & I spent sharing a last name, so naturally I decided I needed to make it perfect.  I started the quest for perfection by ordering Ryan a Kindle.  He wanted the less expensive one but that didn't seem quite up to snuff for Perfect-mas, so I ordered the Kindle Fire.  For maximum secrecy, I ordered it using funds in the bank account I'm supposed to close (love you hubs!) and had it delivered to Jen and Brendan's house.  If there were Oscars for wifehood, I def thought I was in the running.

Gracious Underground Kindle-road volunteers

To secure my title as awesomest spouse in the world, I also devoted Friday to Perfect-mas.  I worked out, I bought groceries to make dinner and came up with another gift for Ryan at his favorite price point- $0 all while he was at work.  I planned to go retrieve his gift from Jen and Brendan's so that we could do our present exchange that evening but was unsuccessful because there was a difference in opinions as to "delivered".  Namely, the tracking number said it was delivered but Jendan's porch disagreed.

Not to be deterred, we slated the real gift exchange for Christmas Eve and instead I showed Ryan his free Perfectmas gift and made a belly-warming dinner.  We then loaded up our coffee-filled Tervises (Tervi?) and our wiggleworm to go look at lights.  We capped off the evening with the last few episodes of the first season of Homeland (ah-mazing). 

I can not believe 1) that I'm sharing this photo and 2) that I allowed this room to get to this state.  Allow me to explain.  This is where half of my closet took refuge during hurricane move-in.  Periodically in the past 4 months I've needed something I believe to be in one of these bags.  Rather than systematically looking into them, I impatiently rip the bag open, dump the contents on the floor and repeat until I find what I need.  Yeah, so this is the BEFORE of Ryan's free Christmas present.

Another before view with lighting befitting of such a tragedy.

Merry Christmas, Ryan!  Even my camera got in the spirit- those look like lens snowflakes in the middle on the right.

Just to really drive home the point that the floor is completely visible.

The portion of the hurricane going to goodwill- in neat piles waiting to be bagged.

Dinner - Chicken & Cornbread Stuffing casserole.

Failed attempt at a picture of Boo & I ready to look at lights.

Christmas Eve morning I woke up bright and early to go retrieve Ryan's Kindle.  The "delivery" discrepancy persisted.  Jen checked their mailbox to find a key to the larger mail box... which was... wait for it... EMPTY.  At this point Brendan called their local post office and I got on the phone with the Postal Service.  Thirty short (sarcasm font) minutes later I was on the phone with a customer service representative.  The following conversation transpired:

USPS:  Do you have a tracking number?
Me:  Yes, let me find it.  (iPad dies while trying to find the number.)
USPS:  I can wait 60 seconds.
Me:  I have waited 30 minutes, so you can wait longer than 60 seconds.
Me:  My tracking number is ___________.
USPS:  Ma'am, that is a UPS tracking number.
Me:  That makes no sense because it says right here you all are the carrier.  I believe that is further evidenced by the fact that I had a mailbox key to an empty mailbox.
USPS:  You will have to call UPS to get a valid USPS tracking number.
Me:  How did UPS get inside a USPS mailbox?
USPS:  Ma'am, I do not have an answer to that question.
Me:  Okay, well I dont either.  Probably because it doesn't make sense.
USPS:  You will need to call UPS to get a number and then call us back.
Me:  I have already wasted 30 minutes on this.  Do you see what will happen here?  I will call UPS, wait 30 minutes, call you back, wait another 30 minutes and then I'll have wasted almost 2 hours.  It's Christmas Eve.  I have things to do.
USPS:  I have a faster way to get a hold of us.  Would you like that? 
Me:  Yes, that would be perfect.
USPS:  Call 1-800-GO-USPS (or whatever it is).  Then select option 6 and option 4.
Me:  That is what I just did. 
USPS:  Oh.
Me:  Right, so I dont have 2 hours to waste today.  What's going to happen is that you're going to tell me something helpful right now.
USPS:  Ma'am, I'm sorry.  Without a tracking number I can't help you.
Me:  Are you married? 
USPS: Silence.
Me:  Because this is my first Christmas as a married person and I just want to give my husband a present which is allegedly delivered.
USPS:  Without a tracking number I can't help you.

Obviously in this, the last year of my 20s, I've reached the pinacle of maturity and patience.  If my level of frustration were to be measured on the same scale as the terrorist alerts, we were certainly in the red zone.  This led me to relay the conversation I'd just held with USPS to my dear husband.  THAT conversation went something like this:

Me:  I just don't believe that it was UPS or that calling them is going to help. 
Ryan:  Yeah, I'm sorry.  That's incredibly frustrating.
Me:  I KNOW USPS is behind this.  I mean- the mailbox is perfectly Kindle-sized so it makes sense that it would have been in there.
Ryan:  You realize you just told me what the present is?
Me:  *Promptly burst into tears.*

A little visual to help put you in the moment.  (Photo courtesy of cracked.com)

Ryan of course found this whole episode outrageously comical.  Looking back on it, I suppose it IS pretty funny but at the time I was NOT amused.  Somewhere amidst the tears, and processing that I'd yelled at total strangers AND ruined a surprise- things that are fairly out of character for me- Ryan gently suggested we go ahead and call it a day on the Kindle-hunt.  He assured me that it would show up at some point and we decided to move into Phase II of holiday celebration...

Martin Family Christmas (December 24th/25th)
On our way over to Ryan's parents' house we stopped by Jen's parents' house.  Every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas they fry turkeys for whomever is interested.  After tasting the delight of a fried turkey last year, Ryan and I decided to give it a whirl.  It was also a nice excuse to get to see the Coleman's as I rarely get to anymore.  It's been ages since I've pillaged their bread stash.  By the time we left, we not only had a heavenly smelling bird but I'd completely forgotten the Kindle-stain upon our Perfect-mas.

Turkey prep brings out the Dexter in Ryan.

Jen spearing some weiners.  NBD.

Ryan trying to be Chris' personal umbrella holder, and Chris reacting like any good celebrity being chased by the Paparazzos.

Brendan knows the best way to get Ryan's attention is to shove food in his face.

Magic machine.

(Fried) Bird is the word, ya heard?

Afterwards we headed over to Ryan's parents house.  We got into some festive socks, pigged out on some turkey and watched Christmas Vacation.  At some point during the evening, Jen texted me that when they arrived home that evening that a box from Amazon was on their porch with my name on it.  Thank YOU Santa!  I went to bed a relieved lady.

I woke up at 6:30 am on Christmas morning with the idea that I'd sneak out, get Ryan's present and get back to the Martin's before everyone woke up.  The only flaw in my plan was Lola.  Tails McWhackerson knocked something over which woke Ryan up and forced me to confess said plan.  Luckily he let me go, as long as I promised to take the whiskered hurricane with me.  After an hour and 20 mins of driving, I was back at Ryan's parents with the Kindle.  TRIUMPH! 

Clearly since no one was awake upon my return, the moment was not photographically documented.  However, if it had been, I feel confident it would have looked much like this.  Rafiki = Me, Simba = Kindle Fire.  (photo courtesy of DeliciousBass)

Christmas morning at the Martins was wonderful.  It was so much fun to get to watch Kylie open her presents and to see how excited she was.  She's at such a fun age.  Ryan and I also got spoiled with way too much fun stuff.  Of course, we were treated to Ryan's Dad's famous biscuits and chocolate gravy.  It was an excellent start to my favorite day of the year.  Around noon, Ryan and I packed up our haul and headed up to Conroe.

Look lady - Elmo is TRAPPED.  I'm going to need you to pick up the pace.

Okay, you're out now show me what you've got.

Not to go all JLo-as-an-American-Idol-Judge on you, but I can do better.  Let me show you.

Oh you thought that was impressive?  I can also play the recorder.  While brushing my hair.  Boom, roasted.

Recorder or dog whistle?

I will go ahead and answer 2 burning questions for you.  1) We did not plan the UT/A&M thing.  2) No I did not put make up on for 5 days.  Sometimes Santa brings eye infections and there's no need to waste good eyeliner on that.

Boarman Family Christmas (December 25th/26th)
There's no feeling quite like walking into your parent's house for the holidays.  It instantly transports me into a happy, warm, childhood memory-filled place.  I think it's physically impossible to be in a bad mood in that moment.  It was a feeling I always looked forward to during finals in college.  As an adult, this hasn't changed in the least.  This year was certainly no different. 

Home sweet home.

Confession:  I got too comfortable at home and forgot to take pictures.  Instead, I'll post this picture I never did of my parents from Cinco de Mayo.  The jell-o shots are red and green which qualifies this as festive.

Another picture not from Christmas which I think fits the season given Julie is wearing a pimp coat.  Side note:  Julie thinks she's making fun of me for owning this coat in the first place, but I bet she didn't expect this to show up on the blog.  Point: Amy.

Not long after we arrived Santa Jimmy James insisted it was present time.  We all opened gifts and once again, Ryan and I were beyond spoiled.  We got all kinds of cool stuff that I'm enjoying finding homes for in our house.  Afterwards we had a delicious pot roast and did what we always do at the Boarman house- played some games.  This weekend's game of choice was Sequence and we made the unfortunate decision of letting Ryan and my Dad be on the same team.  The two biggest trash talkers in one corner is never a good call.  Nonetheless, we had an excellent time.

Again, no photos were taken but Team Jimmy Ryan's celebrations were on par with this. (photo not mine)

The remainder of the weekend was filled with watching my Dad and Ryan errantly sawing things in the garage, laughing at the doggies and watching the Kardashians (sad but true).  Another perfect holiday weekend spent with family.

Little Bean in all her awkward-sitting-position glory. 

I know that I say this after each holiday or weekend that we spend with family, but it's as true now as ever-  Ryan and I are SO, SO very blessed to have such incredibly caring families to go home to.  We love you all and I just can't imagine where we'd be without you.  This year's Kindle debacle was also a humbling reminder that perfection is found in the small moments you don't expect it- not in the pomp and circumstance of situations and events we try too hard to control.  I hope that this holiday was as family-, food- and fun-filled for each of you as it was for us!