Sneaky, Smooth, Christmas

Christmas has never been a particularly great holiday for me. Before age ten, my Uncle Tim got sick on Christmas and died sometime in early January. My Aunt Connie died Christmas morning when I was thirteen years old. When I was 16, I spent the last Christmas I ever would with my grandpa, although he was extremely disoriented. He died five days later.

As far as that goes, for obvious reasons, Christmas hasn't been on my big "This is going to be awesome!" list for quite a while.

This Christmas, however, was sneaky, smooth, and fantastic. First, I'm going to show off my gifts and give a couple of stories behind them. Then I'll rant about my own little Christmas experience.


The present I was probably most excited for was this ring. I was THRILLED when I opened the box to see this ring. Here's why:

I went to the mall with Lance, his mom, and his little brother and sister. We were all going up for a fun day at the mall and just to get out of town. Lance and I were really broke at this time (as we usually are), but I was gawking at that ring the whole time we were in Earth Bound. I asked Lance before we left the store, "If we don't buy anything today, Can I please go back and get that ring?" Lance said yes, and I spent the rest of the day thinking about how pretty and perfect this ring would look. No ring I had ever seen before, or since then compared to it (this trip was a month or two ago). As our shopping day came to an end, we hadn't bought anything else and I asked Lance to come with me back to Earth Bound so that I could buy my ring. When we arrived, it was gone! Within a matter of an hour or two, the ring of my dreams had been taken away by someone who would never appreciate it as much as I could...or so I thought. What really went down was Lance's Mom had saw me staring at the ring the entire time we were in there. She had asked me to take Lance's little sister out of the store so that she could buy something for her for Christmas (which she did as well). The big twist to me was that I hadn't been kicked out of the store so that she could buy my ring as well. 

Also, from Earth Bound:

This super sweet skull and crossbones. This had been something that Lance and I (mostly me) had our eye on for a few weeks before she even bought this. In fact, she bought the very last one. We had been meaning to get one the previous few times we had been there and seen it, but we always seemed to be too broke or ended up spending money on other things.  In any case, I'm extremely excited about this. It's another thing to add to my collection of pirate decor. 

Also to add to my sweet pirate collection, this amazing wooden model ship! Lance's Mom and I were looking through some magazines and this really caught my eye. Again, this was a few months ago. Lance's Mom ordered it for me and wah-lah! It is now in my possession and I am extremely excited. I'm planning on painting it and it's going to be amazing.

Here's another good, sneaky Christmas story for you.

Jason Portell, Lance's step-dad, messaged Lance and I on facebook one day requesting a bit of our time for some photographs. He told us of his plan to get these photos of us together and print them out for Lance's mom as a Christmas present. This made perfect sense since last year he gave her photos of Lance and his younger brother, Jake. This morning, when we were all opening presents, we recieved these framed photos of us gift-wrapped with our names on them. Jason had pulled one over on us and got us to pose not only for her Christmas present, but secretly for ours as well. This was a wonderful surprise considering Lance and I have so few pictures together, especially ones worthy of hanging on walls.

I do want to thank Angela and Jason Portell for these wonderful gifts. There was a lot of thought, heart, and love put into this. You guys are wonderful.

Also, for Christmas Lance and I got:

Lots of candy.

A sweet ass vacuum cleaner (which we needed more than words can say)

and $100!!!

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As far as the heart of Christmas goes, it has been an extremely wonderful one. I got to spend the day with my family, yesterday. I blogged about this some last night, but it was just really great. It's so bizarre how well I get along with my family and the way I'm unafraid to say anything to them anymore. Before, they were people that I hid the parts of my life I was afraid they would judge without hesitating. Now, I let it all hang out and know they will love me no matter how many mistakes I make. Plus, they're all fucking nuts too, so I've got nothing to lose. =)

I spent four hours working today, but it wasn't all that bad. For the most part, people were calling in to swap their phones and many started off the conversation with me saying "Merry Christmas, Brittany! How are you?" This kept me in a pretty good mood, plus the fact that I only had to work four hours instead of my usual eight.

At noon, I went to Lance's Mom's House. We ate extremely tasty food. Ham. Mac N' Cheese. Mashed Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes. Stuffing. I love Christmas Dinner. I think they just need to migrate Ham into Turkey Day; It is so much tastier.

After lunch, everyone opened presents and thanked everyone. 

Then, we went to Lance's Dad's and did the whole Christmas celebration there.

I'm cutting this a little short, but I'm going to get the basis of what I really want to say out in this next paragraph:

This Christmas Holiday has been great. I know I am such a lucky lady for having a crazy family that is alive and healthy, a boyfriend that is worth a thousand years, and his family who has readily taken me in as if I were one of their own. I have some really wonderful people in my life. I have so much more than a lot of people do and I just want to take this moment to say that I am so grateful for everything I have and I couldn't ask for a life better than mine.

Also, I love this little girl to pieces. This is my little sister, Brylee Faye. I can't believe how big she is getting.