Holly, Jolly Christmas!

Since I consider this my 'journal' I suppose I ought to write down how Christmas went. Typical of my life, nothing went according to plan. I suppose I ought to be used to that now, but I still try to have a loose plan and get a bit flustrated when my plan is overridden.

December was an incredibly hectic month for me personally. Between all the kids activities for school and music, I was also in the midst of making changes and plans for our ward Primary for next year. This is my first change of year as Primary President and I'm sure I'm complicating it more than it needs to be, but it feels like the right time to make some changes. I then also threw in on top of all that a Primary Quarterly Activity, since we hadn't done one yet as a presidency and dental checkups in my hometown!

We muddled through all the school and music and Primary stuff and headed off to the sunny south! Yeah, right! We had a big storm the day we were at the dentist and headed home on iffy roads the next day. As we drove north, things seemed to get better, until we hit that lovely road between Green River and Price. It's 60 miles of nothing...sagebrush doesn't even grow there. As we were driving I started hearing this very loud, whining sound over the radio. I wondered if it was our car and turned off the radio. It was very loud and as I started to slow, so did the whining sound. Oh, GREAT!! I pulled over and tried to call my husband,(thanks to my dad for sending me off with his cell phone as mine was not functional) and couldn't get hold of him. I then called my sister in Price and asked her to try to call my hubby and give him Dad's cell phone number. I thought maybe he wasn't answering because he didn't recognize the number. He finally called me back and we set a plan in motion for him to come get me, the kids and the car.

I'm so thankful that my sister lived so close, we were a half hour from her, so she sent her son to pick us up and take us to her house. They also arranged for a friend to go out with a towtruck to retrieve my car. Hubby finally located an auto trailer and, thanks to his BIL, a vehicle to pull it and carry all of us. He made it there pretty late and we decided not to chance the icy roads through the canyon and so we stayed over and drove home on the 24th.

Needless to say, that changed a few of our plans. I didn't have a chance to finish all the shopping, but the kids were really understanding and didn't complain. We spent a quiet Christmas day at home with our kids. Hubby's parent's showed up at 8:30 in the morning and it was their knock that woke us up! We stayed in our p.j.'s all day and ate way too much junk and played with new games, puzzles and toys, but the highlight of the day was getting to talk to our missionary son.
He called at about 1 p.m. and we got 40 minutes to hear his voice. He didn't have much to say. We had put the phone on speaker and I think he was actually overwhelmed at the noise and chaos of our home. He must have forgotten how crazy it can get. I am so thankful that he is being watched over and taken care of. He has had many interesting experiences that have helped his own testimony grow. I'm so pleased at the efforts he makes each day to share the beautiful message of the gospel of Christ. I know it's not easy to wake up each day and go out to talk to people who don't really want to talk to you, but he does it and we 'see' the changes and blessings that it is bringing to his life.

Looking back at this Christmas season, I feel so blessed that as crazy as things were we were still blessed beyond measure. "Things" lost alot of their appeal as we saw so many people exhibit the true spirit of Christmas to help us out. We may not be able to repay all who helped us, but we can 'pay it forward' and seek to serve and help bless the lives of others as we see and become aware of needs. That's the true spirit of Christmas, and it's good all year long!