A Review of Christmas Past

2003
Ryan and I were married two days after Christmas. It was a busy, overshadowed Christmas. Who cares about Christmas when there's a wedding to finalize?

2004
Upon arrival at the Columbus airport on December 23rd, we learned the power was out at my parents' house. It came back on 4 days later. It was a cold, hungry Christmas.

2005
We drove from Provo to Boise to spend Christmas with Ryan's family. It was my first Christmas away from home, and despite everyone's valiant efforts to make me feel at home, loved, welcomed and comfortable, I spent most of Christmas Eve and Day crying.

2006
My dad got a new job December 15th in St Louis, so we returned to Columbus for our last Christmas "at home." Each child was assigned to go through all their childhood belongings and clean out. Anything we wanted, we took with us. Everything else went to Goodwill. It was a sad farewell to the only house I ever remembered living in.

2007
We booked a flight to Portland for Christmas Day - in September - and received an automated voicemail on Christmas Eve informing us that our flight had been canceled and we'd been automatically rebooked for the 26th. Ryan spent 24 hours on the phone with non-English speaking customer service reps (think "Outsourced") striving to rebook us.

2008
Collin was admitted (at 4 days old) to the hospital pediatric unit for 25 hours of blue-light incubating. The staff was awful, the nurses were worse, and the doctors... you can't imagine.

2009
We had just finished remodeling our dining room, and our entire house was caked in an inch of dust. I finally put up our Christmas tree on the 23rd, but we left town on the 24th to head to my parents' place. Ryan had a little stomach bug too, but it wasn't too bad. This was our best Christmas by far.

2010
See "Billiards & Barfing" post. 'Nuf said.

Better luck next year?