I always love going home. It only happens about once a year. But at the same time I crave a Christmas at home. I know once we decide to stay home I will regret it since I know that Grandparents won't always be around and that cousins grow up and stop playing.
It was good to be home and for the kids to be at grandma and grandpa DePriests house since they spend so much time with the Lee grandparents. It was fun to stay up late (even thought I hate loosing hours of sleep) and trying on old prom dresses that were ridiculously immodest! Fun to laugh at old pictures of my sisters and I with stupid looking hair and outfits. Fun to have a bonfire in the backyard and tell stories. Fun to play basketball at the church and go on walks to the park. The best is visiting my dad's shop to "shop" around. I think Allie the dog has traumatized my kids from ever getting a dog. It's obvious Allie is never around kids and super possessive of my dad and won't let anyone near him. It was fun to shop and go the movies to see ANNIE which was super cute and my favorite was going out to eat REAL Mexican food. Sophapillas are non existent outside of New Mexico. I wish I could call myself a true New Mexican but really I just can't take that much heat. My parents on the other hand put green chili in everything. This year even the stuffing was too hot! Spicy stuffing?! Candlelight pizza from DIONS is heaven except the green chili on that was also killing me. I wish that I would have gotten more time with Cody but he took off Christmas morning and wasn't seen again until Sunday night. He is not in a good spot right now and talking to him was so hard. One night when he and my dad were in a heated moment in the garage and my mom was upstairs in her bed crying for an intervention to break them up, Tj (who could also hear all the fighting) must have been prompted to go in and tell my dad he had set up the new speakers for the TV just to break them up. My mom told me this a couple days later and was so thankful for answered prayers through other people to give my dad an out. I pray that one day soon Cody will have the will power and motivation to turn his life around. I miss him.
I was very jealous when I saw that Utah had woken up to a white Christmas. We hadn't gotten any snow and I was sad that on Christmas they got a ton and we were in NM missing the magic of it all.
We got our own little miracle 8 minutes before Christmas was over when the first tiny snow flakes began to fall. The Arizona kids were beyond excited it was funny. We woke up to enough snow to play in. It was pretty funny to try and round up any "snow" clothes we could go out and play in.
That was the kind of Christmas I knew growing up. We always had snow. But New Mexico has been in like a 7 year drought. The best gifts were: Tallies foot spa (I think I got 20 pedis) and her little video camera (she has made some funny movies), Chloe's bike, Lexi's HUGE stuffed unicorn, Kasens wiggle car and I got a sweet beach cruiser with a basket and the fry sauce in my stocking.
We got to skype Elder Camryn Bradshaw and it was so fun to talk to him. We sure missed having him around this Christmas.
