all that and a bag a puhtaytuh chips

I've been neglecting my blog, and I feel terrible about it. SIKE. Also, I understand 'sike' is not actually a word and the correct word is 'psych', but I feel like SIKE is a better spelling to describe the action of SIKEing someone out. PSYCH sounds like, PSYCHO or something, and that is clearly not what that word means in this context. Anyway.

I've had a lot going on lately. Okay, sike again. I haven't. My life is pretty much the same. Christmas was actually awesome. It was my first Christmas away from my family, so it was definitely a little strange not waking up to little kids yelling and running down the hall. But I wanna do Christmas all over again. Seriously. It was the best. And before Christmas my mother came to visit me for a few days. But we didn't get to spend too much time together because I couldn't take work off due to the holiday season, so I was stuck working the majority of the time she was here. And she got food poisoning or something while she was here :( boo. But it was a good time.

I love Christmas. Some of the best memories I have happened during the Christmas season. Phantoming, by far, is my favorite Christmas memory. Every year my family and I would choose a family we all knew, and ding-dong-ditch them every day for the 12 Days of Christmas. So for the latter half of December, we would give this family a gift pertaining to whatever 'Day of Christmas' it was. For example, the second day of the song is 'two turtle doves' so we would give them either Dove soap or Dove chocolate or something. We also added to it, by giving them a piece of a Nativity set every night. So on Christmas Eve, or the 12th day, we would 'reveal' ourselves, give them the last piece of the Nativity, and sing them 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. We called it 'phantoming', and it was my favorite thing in the world. We still talk about the families who chased us every night trying to catch us. We still talk about who tripped on what curb and ate cement, or that time Jael said I was in the truck when I actually was barely hanging on so my dad took off and I fell into the road and tore the crap out of my favorite pair of Lee Pipes. It is seriously my favorite tradition. And the families we do it to always have the best time, and still talk to us about it during Christmas. It's awesome.

I also love Christmas music. I don't care what anyone says, I love listening to Christmas music 24/7 in December. It never gets old. Okay, that's a lie. Some songs get old. But there are so many Christmas songs that I have inside jokes with people because of, so every time I hear those songs I crack up. I mostly crack up inside, but sometimes out loud. Then I have to explain myself. For example, the song Feliz Navidad. Funniest story ever. Me writing about it, or even telling anyone about it, does not do it justice. It's one of those you-had-to-be-there stories. But I will share it anyway. Haha. In Seminary my sophomore year, everyone knows Somerville puts on the Christmas musical program in every class. Well, me, Jael, Kami, Garrett, Lans, Scott, Aaron I think, and one other person decided that we were going to play the kazoos to the tune of Feliz Navidad. We even asked Somerville beforehand if that was okay, and he said no. Well, that didn't stop us. When it was our turn, only me, Jael, and Kami got up. I went to the piano, and started playing O Holy Night. Jael and Kami were the vocalists. They sang one line of the song, to my accompaniment, and then we hopped up, whipped out our kazoos, and the boys joined us up front and we started jamming out to Feliz Navidad. With no music, of course. Just our plastic kazoos. Somerville got so angry. He turned off the tape recorder, and sat with his arms folded, glaring at us. Me and Jael and a couple other people made the mistake of making eye contact with Somerville, and we busted out laughing, so we had to sit down. Lans and Garrett were the only ones that finished out the song. The rest of us, including the class, were laughing too hard. Somerville was so mad at us. But it was so worth it. Seminary was awesome. Feliz Navidad is awesome. Among other songs. Like O Holy Night. And Happy Holidays. And others. Oh Christmas songs. I love you.

Okay, can I just say... the Strip is AMAZING at Christmastime. Sometime around Christmas I got to walk down the Strip, and pretty much went into every hotel possible except like 2. Seriously, it's my favorite. I didn't feel like the Strip was the normal trashy, hooker magnet place that it usually is. Everything was so cute! Inside the Bellagio, they had this whole set up of penguins and poinsettias and frosty swans (looks prettier than it sounds) and this HUGE Christmas tree:



I love it. At the Venetian there was also a big Christmas tree outside that changed colors and was awesome. They also had a fake ice rink set up and people were ice skating outside. And then there was a flash mob sort of thing where a few people dressed all in white were on the side of the building on small platforms and were singing along to Christmas music that was playing real loud. Everyone stopped to watch and it was so cool! I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

My New Year's celebration was equally awesome. Yet again, another SIKE. Let me tell you about my New Year's. Well, I hadn't had any solid plans for New Year's Eve. I had to work until 2pm on New Year's Eve, and I made the mistake of saying yes to my boss when he asked me to work New Year's Day. So that kind of screwed up the non-existent plans that I had of going out and getting crazy. I had a girlfriend from Tucson who was supposed to come up to Vegas for New Year's, but ended up flaking out. I had a couple other friends come up but they were just going to the Strip and getting shwasted, and that didn't sound like fun to me. There was an institute dance on the other side of town, but my roommates were out of town, and who goes to an institute dance by themselves. Scratch that. Who goes to an institute dance. Anyway. So I didn't really have any plans, except that all I'd been hearing about was the fireworks that happen on the Strip, so I reeeeeally wanted to watch those, whether it was from someone's roof or someone's TV or whatever. So that was what I wanted to do. Well, after I got home from work around 3pm my Visiting Teaching companion called me and said she was having a party at her house around 9 and said I should come. So I said, "okay sweet, I'll be there." Well, at about 5 I decided to take a nap so that I could actually stay awake til midnight, because I usually can't. I set my alarm so that I could get up and shower and whatnot. Well, my alarm went off, but instead of getting up I turned it off and went back to sleep. And I slept... til 4:30am... ummm yeah. I woke up and the first thing I realized was... I missed EVVVERRRRYTHINGGG. I was so mad. Then I was like, "well eff it, it's all over." So I went back to sleep, woke up at 7am, and wandered around my apartment eating random things until I had to get ready for work. It was the. worst. New Year's. ever. And I was in Vegas for crying out loud! Ugh. Still mad.

The end. Here's to 2012. If my first few days of this year were any indication of how the rest of the year will play out, it's gonna be a lonnnng year. But I'm excited. Less than 12 months til the world ends so I hope I am prepared. Yikes.