Our family has a tradition every year to make something for one of our family members. I had Josh this year and I made him a book full of letters from people that he was close to and that have been influenced by him. It was a pretty neat thing to put together! I was amazed with all the letters that came in and how much influence my brother has had on so many people! We always open the presents on Christmas Eve, and my whole family agrees that after that night we could just do away with the rest of Christmas because of the spirit that we feel from doing that one simple thing for each other. One of the cool things that happened that night was that Josh sent a package home and sent Preston his gift which was a DVD. "A Day In The Life of Elder Chapman." It was amazing! We got to see Josh and it was so neat to watch him in his mission element!
Then we got our traditional Christmas Eve gift! PAJAMAS!!!
We had my Grandma Chapman staying with us that night and she read my brothers and I a Christmas story before we went to bed. I loved it! We love our Grandma and how she always makes us feel so special and we have created some amazing memories with her! Well Christmas Eve was no exception!
The boys and I stayed in Ben's room and we had lots of fun! The boys tried to get me into a video game but I am no good at them so they finally gave up and we watched "ELF" which I had never seen before. We finally got to bed at about 2:30 in the morning! Then our grandma woke us up at about 5:45. She couldn't contain her excitement either! We took our showers and woke up mom and dad. Then we lined up down the stairs. That's another tradition we have is that we all go into the family room together. No one peeks!
We had fun! My big gift this year was a digital camera! I was so excited! I haven't had a camera that worked for quite awhile now and i was so excited to get one! Plus it was hot pink! How could I not love it?! The boys got some gaming chairs that have speakers in them and a vibrator and lots of cool stuff. They were having fun with those all morning.
After we opened our Santa gifts, we got the best Christmas present ever! We got to talk to Josh!! It was so happy! I was so excited to just hear his voice! He told us that he felt like it was getting harder and harder to get off the phone with us every time he was able to call, but we were just so happy to be able to talk to him for the 45 minutes we had. He was shocked by how much Preston has grown up. He almost didn't recognize who it was talking on the phone. Preston is taller than all of us now except for Josh probably but when Josh left a year and a half ago he was still little, shorter than me! Then of course his voice has gotten lower and he is just maturing alot more too! Crazy crazy! It was awesome to talk to Josh though! He just lights everything up and we were all just so happy to talk to him!
Then we opened up all our gifts from mom and dad and then we got ready for the whole family to come over to our house for a HUGE Christmas feast and more opening presents! I love when my family comes over! It is always so much fun to hang out with them and be crazy and loud and fun! My favorite thing ever! It's just so awesome!
One of the neat things that happened that night was that right before everyone left my grandma had us all gather in the family room and she talked about some special gifts that she was going to give us that were form her and from grandpa. She had a beautiful bag for each of us and she opened hers first. It was a teddy bear that had been made from one of my grandpa's shirts. It was so special! Each one of us had a bear made for us that was sewn out of a shirt that we had each picked out as our favorite that grandpa had worn. We had done this right after he had passed away and it was so special to have something like that to remember him by. Each one even had a little pocket in front with a pocket notepad and a pen, which was my grandpa's trademark! He never went anywhere without that stuff! My grandma also gave us a picture of the two of them. It was a really special moment for our family that I will not soon forget!
We had a full day! It was so awesome to be with family and friends though! I just loved every second of it! Nothing compares to being with family!
2 comments:
I used to steal Uncle Paul's pens from his pockets and run around Gma Shupe's house w/ him chasing me...that's one of my favorite memories of him...
Yeah for cameras!!
I really like the idea of using each of your favorite shirts of your Grandpa's to make a bear. That's cool!
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