My Favorite Time of Year...

So Christmas is my favorite holiday for sure. It's also my favorite time of year. I love the cold weather (unless you live in Memphis and it's 66 degrees on Christmas Eve) and snow (unless you live in Memphis, then it's rain) and how everyone is caring and jolly and ready for the season (unless you're at the mall). :)

In my family we have a lot of traditions, and we are very traditional in the way of Christmas things. The day after Thanksgiving the Christmas lights go up on the house. This year we switched from multi-colored to red and green, but it still looks cool. Chelsea and i get advent calendars from our grandparents in England, which are calendars with doors that you open up and have chocolate in them for each day. About a week and a half to two weeks (depending on when Christmas falls) we go get our tree because we always get a live one... none of this fake crap! usually on a Sunday after church, and then we come home and decorate it and the rest of the house. This year unfortunately i couldn't make it home to pick out the tree, so my parents and sister had to do it without me. They also put the lights up, but left the ornaments for when I got home that week.

Every year, we get a new ornament as well. Each person in my family does. We go out someplace together and we each pick one out. Then we come home and hang them. This year we went to Macy's to get them. Chelsea and I both got mini snow globes with our names on them (they actually had a Kirsten, that does not happen often) and I got a ornament that said 2008, chelsea got a crown, dad got a red bird, and i don't remember what mom got (sorry). We also do a lot of baking. Mom makes fudge and dad usually makes some sort of chocolate (this year he made choclate chip cookies as well). We also make sugar cookies cut in the shape of trees, stockings, bells, stars, santas, reindeer, and snowmen. We make frosting from scratch and then decorate said sugar cookies. It's a good time all around.

Then on Christmas Eve we go to church. Mom and dad usually go to the 8 service because it's early enough where they can come home and watch A Christmas Carol, like they do every year, and also because it's a traditional service and dad likes those better. Chelsea and I like to go to the midnight service (or 11 pm rather) and do communion and candle light. When we lived in Tulsa there were a couple years where we spent all Christmas Eve at Church because Chelsea would sing at the 5 pm service, then me at the 6:30 service, mom and I at the 8 pm service, and then I would stay and sing at the 11 pm service with a few people from the chiors. :) It was always so much fun though.

Christmas day is always fun. It used to be me who woke Chelsea up in the morning, but now she's usually the one who wakes me up (we agree on a time the night before, unfortunately this year, somehow we settled on 7, probably because my parents didn't protest when Chelsea said we would wake them up at 7). So Chelsea and I go through our stockings, which have been left at the foot of our beds or outside our doors, with each other. Then we go downstairs and wake up the parents and they go through their stockings.

Then we wait while they get dressed and set up the video camera and stuff. Next Chels and I come out to the kitchen and get our big presents... in the past those have been a Game Cube, Donkey Konga, a TV (for me), and when we were younger, a mini roller coaster and a American Girl Kirsten Doll. :) Then we usually tear through the rest of our presents, taking about a half hour at the most. Then mom makes breakfast (I think we're having orange rolls tomorrow... mmm). After that we start cooking Christmas dinner, now that we're older Chelsea and I usually help or do the whole thing ourselves, with help from mom of course.

Dinner is usually ready around 2ish and we all sit down in our formal dining room with the Christmas china. Also, since we're half English, we do Christmas more English style complete with Christmas Crackers. For anyone who deosn't know what those are, they look like big colorful tootsie rolls that two people pull apart and on the inside is a paper crown, a joke or trivia fact, and some little toy. After we're done stuffing our faces we get out the the English cookies!!! The best part ever! And we eat those. :)

Of course the next day is a repeat of the dinner, except, actually at dinner time. Then, on New Year's Day, the Christmas season officially ends. We spend the day snacking on left over sweets, chips and other salty things, crackers, and veggies and fruit. We also take down all the christmas lights outside, the decorations inside, and take everything off the tree. Everything goes back to normal.

This year, I leave to go back to school on the 2nd. Classes start on the 7th, but I'm going up early to work that weekend up there. I'm looking forward to the rest of our traditions though. I'm not sure how many I'll be around for next year, so I'm documenting this whole break with pictures of everything. I've posted them all on my Facebook for people to see. It's a good time. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

What an amazing night!

So last night was Senior Bar Crawl and we started off with ten people. We went to Jillians first to relax from a long day. After about an hour there (and watching the Bears come back in OT) we headed to Ri Ra's which is an Irish pub downtown. We were there for like two hours, though it really didn't seem like that long. They had a live band playing and since the ten of us made up more than half the patrons we got to have anything we wanted played. So we had them play all the Phi Mu songs we could think of... Come On Eileen, Don't Stop Believing, and just random fun songs. After all that, we had about three people leave and the rest of us went to Fast Eddy's. There was a ton of people there. We had a bunch of fun. Slowly through the night our 7 turned to 5, which turned to 3, and the last 3 left at 3 in the morning when the place closed. It was really funny though because I saw one of my managers there as well as one of the bartenders, and so we hung out a little too. :) This night will be remembered forever! It was amazing!

Excting news!

So, as a few of you know... I got pulled over coming home over Thanksgiving... big surprise there. I was really trying not to speed going home too, but that's another story. Anyways. I also didn't have my updated insurance card, so i got two tickets, and a court date to show my insurance card so I wouldn't have to pay the second one. Well the court date was for December 12th at 1 pm... right during finals. At the time, I was thinking this sucks... I'm gonna see if I can get it changed. I called on Monday and whoever I spoke to said, finals weren't enough of an emergency to change my court date, and they only had it once a month anyways. At the time I was thinking, it's a good thing I really don't have finals that day.

I went to my jury rehearsal last night and realized that my jury for my vocal lessons are on Friday at 3:30. Henry, the place where the court is, is 3 hours away. Obviously that wouldn't work. Well of course, I freaked out. So my parents told me to call again today and speak to the city court clerk, since that is the person who makes the docket. So I did, and i told her that I had a final at the same time in Indiana, where I go to school, and I asked her what my options were. She said she would change my court date to the 16th of Jan at 1pm, but if I didn't show up, my license would be suspended. Well the only thing that i'll have is class. :) I can totally skip class, especially since I know all my profs and they know me. :)

Thank you city court clerk, Tania! You just saved me $104!

Finals

So it's finals time here in Evansville which is a time of crazy parties and quiet studying... how do those two mix? Well let me tell you. We have a dead day every semester before finals. It's called Reading/Study Day and it's the Wednesday before finals begin. There are no classes this day. It's like a Saturday in the middle of the week. :) So that Tuesday night becomes one of the last crazy party nights because no one has anything to do the next day. The theater students have ladies' night and man's night. The fraternities usually open their doors to anyone who wants to come, and there's usually one fraternity/sorority that has their semi-formal/formal that night, and therefore... and after party.

Last night was Sig Ep's semi-formal... Blitzen. I didn't get invited to the dance, but I did get invited to the after party. :) My friends Kellie, Claudia, Jesse, Jason, Andrew, and I all had a good time. Lots of dancing... and maybe some drinking too. ;) Then after everyone recvoers the next day... the studying begins for finals, since finals start on Thursday. So everyone studies like crazy for two days and then take a break on friday and saturday. Then on Sunday the studying begins again until finals are over. As soon as your done you go home for Christmas... of course there are a few brave souls who will have fun before finals. I'm not one of them.

Tomorrow night is senior bar crawl though. It should be a fun time. The seniors are all really excited about this. :) Friday is my first final... it's my voice jury. I'm really nervous and excited for this. Saturday night I'm going to a redneck party with my friend JPatt. I have my next final on monday night, one on tuesday at 12:30, and my last one is on Wed. at 10:15... then i will probably head home and work quite a bit over break. :) Last fall finals ever! AHHH! Scary. :(