The Christmas I will never forget:
After that visit, life started to mellow out a bit for us. We were still settling into our new home, and slowly unpacking the remaining boxes that I had been putting off for a while. Enjoying what was left of our summer, quickly headed into fall, and getting back into the swing of normalcy. It wasn't long after that visit that we had become pregnant with our second child. We were excited to continue to grow our family, and always knew we wanted more kids. Several months had gone by and we now were faced with another challenge we chose to accept. My grandfather was moving back to Colorado from Oregon, and wanted to stay with us. We agreed because, well, he was family and we know how hard it is to get on your feet after relocating. The family tensions were high though, and my grandmas health wasn't doing too well. We knew she would be with us only a little while longer, so we had that lingering in the back of our minds daily.
We decided to head to Oregon for the holidays to see her before it was too late. My aunt was taking care of her in her home, so it made sense to go visit. She had never meet her great grandson and it had been several years that I had last seen her myself. Needless to say, it was much over due. We drove the 19 hours it took to get there, stopping in Twin Falls, Idaho and arrived just before Christmas.
Visiting my family is not for the faint of heart. Not because there's drama, or bitterness and past grudges (what family doesn't have its own issues); but for the exact opposite reasons. See, my family is quite loud and obnoxious. We laugh and over analyze the stupidest of things, but we also love deeply and selflessly for one another, therefore we pick on each other a lot more than most. And whenever all of us are around it worsens. The jokes, humor, sarcasm, and orneriness levels go through the roof. Its like being at a comedy show for a week, and every emotion comes out in full while you're there! Its a lot to handle if you are new and haven't been around us, just ask the small town folks there when we all walked into the store.
Christmas came and went, and we did our traditional baking sweets and gingerbread house making, along with exchanging gifts. It was a Christmas I will never forget. Not because of the gifts, but because of the cherished memories we'd made. My cousin, grandma and I sang along to Elvis out of key, as loudly as we could, laughing and crying until our face and ribs hurt. The gingerbread house we made, went from a normal beautiful house, to a morbid rendition of the woodland creatures eating one another, and looked as though World War III had broken lose on the kitchen table. There were headless gummy bear parts all over, and somehow they had acquired toothpick swords and were mangled messes on the doorstep and rooftop. The roof itself was hilarious because we all had different ideas on how the roof should be made. From graham crackers and over-frosted pretzel rods, to way too much frosting and burnt toast. With every idea, came more ridiculousness. The toast didn't work because, well, its toast! It sagged in the middle, and the harder we tried to get it to work, the more we couldn't stop laughing at how awful and morbid our families creation grew to be. I wish I still had a picture, but hopefully you get the idea.
Our time together came to its end which is never easy for any of us. We all live in different states so we seldom get to see one another. About half way through the trip I'd also come down with a nasty virus and was so sick that it made sense to head back home when we did, just before the New Year. We said our goodbyes and it was bittersweet. Little did we know the news we all were dreading came shortly after that visit.
On January 8th, I'd gotten the phone call that my grandmother had passed away. Although devastated and heartbroken by the news, I looked back with great joy on the memories not but 2 weeks prior. The laughter, tears, and memories were all the more precious to me. No one could take those from me. I was able to share with her in the last moments of her life, an amazing fun-loving time and see her light up like never before. To me, that was the greatest Christmas present I could've ever received.
