A HaakLalChip Christmas Production

Welcome to Christmas with the Haakenson-Lallatin-Chipman brood. And you can’t forget about the Bests, Strahans, Cooks, Brintons, and Getzs. We have quite the party every year. There are always new faces to be seen, and all the chaos you could want. You really couldn’t ask for a better time.

Let me just say that I love, love, love Christmas - the atmosphere, the smells, the decorations, the anticipation. All of it. It’s such an exciting, beautiful time of year (not to mention a nice break from school). And this year I got to be HOME! We have such fun traditions that I love being a part of. Although, the drive home was a beast. Not as bad as the drive back to Utah, and certainly not as bad as the drive home for Thanksgiving last year (18 freaking hours!!!). I will not sit in a car for more than an hour at a time for the next three months, at least.

Aside from actually getting there, being there was lovely. I saw my best girlfriends and some other good friends from high school. We played a little Just Dance 3 (we’re a hilarious bunch btw), went “classy” classic roller skating, and went down to the resort like the good old days. My first day back I sunk my teeth into a delicious Huddy burger. I’ve had a lot of good burgers, but none compare to the perfection of a Hudson’s Hamburger. Of course we had cousinpalooza up at the Schweitzer condo and hit the slopes early enough the next day to get first tracks. Dang, I need to brush up on my skiing. I used to be skiing at least once a week. Now it’s like once a year. Unacceptable.

Now for the real reason you are here. How does my crazy family celebrate the most wonderful time of the year? It all begins Christmas Eve. Everyone gathers at either the Lallatins or the Haakensons for Christmas feast number one.  We open gifts from the different families, and we usually have a visit from some character who is acting as Santa’s Helper. Last year it was the Grinch. This year it was the Cat in the Hat (or Kat in the Hat).

Merry Christmas!!

Kat in the Hat and the grandkids.

Christmas morning rolls around and at my house we wake up to stockings filled with chocolate and little presents, gifts from Santa, and gifts from each other. After tearing into those, we have strawberry waffles for breakfast. They’re the best when you spread sour cream all over them and then top them with yummy strawberries. And you can’t forget about the Satsuma oranges on the side. When Christmas falls on a Sunday we go to church for Sacrament meeting, and then head to Sunbar for the rest of Christmas Day. This year, we switched it up and went to serve Christmas dinner at a nearby restaurant for the less fortunate. It was so fun, and I’m not just saying that. I really enjoyed serving and chatting with the people there. They were so friendly and so grateful. It made me realize how incredibly blessed I am. I don’t have to worry about some of the simplest things, like where my next meal is coming from.

We did go to Sunbar (the grandparents’ house) afterward for Christmas feast number two and for round two of stockings. Santa also stops at their house for all the grandkids. We play games and ice skate and eat until we can’t eat no mo. In the past we’ve had some pretty intense games of Cranium. When my Aunt Sneena and I are on a team, we are unstoppable (in any game, not just Cranium). Seriously, we’ve never lost. You’ve been warned.

And now you have officially survived a Christmas with us! Congratulations! There is no better way to celebrate the Savior’s birth than with such amazing people, in my humble opinion, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Although, I could really use some sunshine right about now. Can it be summer already????

Survivor

I did it. I made it. I completed exactly half (1/2) of the infamous accounting junior core. Sorry, no speech. What will I do next? Complete the other half of course. Not a super exciting prospect, but it’s looking to be a more exciting/interesting semester. The first half of the core consisted of accounting information systems (basically, my least favorite class ever – although Professor Burton was awesome), financial accounting one (yay!), and auditing (what I’ll start my career in). The second half consists of tax (could be interesting), financial accounting two (double yay!), and managerial accounting (tough but fun). I realize I am not a normal person, since I just used ‘accounting’ and ‘fun’ in the same sentence (or afterthought), but the world needs people like me. Clearly, I have a personality (I am NOT the 99% - haha), or you wouldn’t be reading my blog because it would be really boring. Or maybe it is? In that case someone should probably tell me. Thanks in advance for being gentle.

Juusssssst kidding! I know you guys love me so much!! And just for that I’m going to talk about accounting for a couple more sentences. I want to relate the ordeal that finals week is. We have a partially comprehensive final in each subject – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 7:00-FREAKING-AM. Campus scheduling hates us. So I was stuck there all week. Usually I take all my finals within the first two days and then get the heck out of there. Instead, I had to stress the whole week about tests. And we don’t even know our grades yet. We won’t know for like another week. I know, my life is sooo hard.

I was looking back over my blog and realized that my last post was over a month ago. You’ve probably been dying to know what kind of trouble I’ve been getting myself into. Or not. Either way, I don’t have some great excuse for why I’ve been negligent.

Ok, if you’ve kept up on my blog you’ll know that sometimes I like to go off on tangents. This is one of those times. Maybe you’ve noticed, but I tend to use some bigger words on here than I do when I’m actually speaking. This is because I like to think in big words. Seriously, sometimes my mind is like a Jane Austen novel. But when I talk, I use smaller words, because who really wants to sound like they’ve come straight from Pride and Prejudice? This little complex of mine tends to lead to my spoken sentences being all jumbled up and the sporadic changing of topics. If you’ve ever noticed this, now you know why! My brain is thinking too quickly and in big words, so I’m frantically trying to translate into smaller words, and by the time I’ve done this my brain is already on to the next topic. For example, my brain is thinking “I am disinclined to acquiesce your request” and my mouth is trying to say “No.” Please tell me I’m not the only one that does this!!!

Now back to what I was talking about before. Yes, I’ve just been negligent. Or lazy. Or both. I mean, nothing grand has happened or anything, but I could have afforded my readers the courtesy of a little update to let them know I hadn’t forgotten them. I say that like I’m a big deal with thousands of readers, hahaha. To the dedicated few, I thank you. To sum up what I’ve been doing for the past month: school, more school, Heather’s (my roommate) birthday (the big 2-4!!), even more school, Thanksgiving, and hot chocolate parties. If you haven’t been to one of our hot chocolate parties, and you live in Provo, COME! This was all Heather’s idea, but I’ve definitely jumped on board and dare to call myself a co-host. She had this tradition before her mission with a bunch of Spokane buddies, and they called it ‘Cocoa Chat’. Well, it’s technically still called that, and she makes all these hilarious signs for it. Anyway, it’s now open to the public and we’ll start back up after the break. It’s at 9:30 every Sunday and BYOM (bring your own mug). Get in touch with me for directions.

So the only other thing I’ve been doing is finally getting around to editing my Spain photos. Since I work for the on-campus computer labs, I got to download the entire Adobe Creative Suite 5 – FOR FREE!! Basically, the greatest perk ever. So now I can do some pretty sweet stuff with my pictures. I’ll post a link to the Flickr album they’ll be in eventually.

One last thing before I go. This past weekend I had the privilege of seeing one of my best friends of 13+ years, Miss Jessica Jeske, be married in the Bountiful, Utah temple to a very lucky man, Mr. David Howard. Congratulations to them both, again. I’m so happy for them, and so glad to see how happy David makes her. They are a beautiful couple. And, you guessed it, I was there to take some great pictures. Coming soon!!

Thanks for sticking all the way to the end! Someday I’ll learn that if I regularly blog, I won’t have to spend so much time writing such long posts. Well, until that day…

P.S. (I know you're thinking will this ever end??) I can't believe I'm just mentioning this now. I'M HOME!!! Yes, I'm j-chillin' in beautiful Coeur d'Alene for the holidays. And I'm in heaven. I love this. Don't worry, I'll let you in on all our crazy family traditions later. But that's a post for another day. Ciao!