Matchy Matchy Christmas

(This is us on Christmas Eve with our new jammies and our puppies - if you look carefully you can see Troy on the lefthand side)

We made a haul this Christmas! I think everyone was pretty happy with their stash. The funniest part to me though was, how, for some reason, we all seemed to match our gifts. I love when random things like this happen.

This is my favorite matchy picture. Afton just matched her gifts all the way around. She had a very pink and turquoise Christmas. And Cousin Joe was totally inspired to wrap the gift he gave her in paper matching her new jammie pants.

And you just have to see what was in the package from Cousin Joe!

Platform Slippers! So Afton... so perfect and of course, so the right color!! (just as a side note, with them on, she is almost as tall as Brad)

I matched twice. Weird...

Packaging on a gift from Kelsi.

And on a hat from Brady and a Zebra Blanket from my sister, Janet.

For Kelsi not being a "pink girl" she got pink jammies and a "Barbie" DVD from Brady, in what other color, than pink. (The story on the Barbie videos is a subject for some other post)

Brad had the most matches - not just in color though.

He got this Cramer T-shirt from Afton.

Brad identifies on many levels with Seinfeld and the characters therein. TOTAL MATCH! (sorry about the blurriness)

He also matched with the subject of another t-shirt he received from Brady.

Brad is our resident Grinch. He doesn't hate Christmas, but he's not into the "experience" like the rest of us are... he grumbles about putting up the tree, stresses about the amount of money we're spending, complains about how much fudge and junk food we all consume and the list goes on and on. In the end he's really a good sport and it's just fun to tease him about it.

I was also happy that this t-shirt matched his new jammies. Santa searched high and low and couldn't find a suitable one in the correct size. I think his new jammies are cute, now if we can just convince him that they are "low-rise" pants and they really DO fit him.

Here's his color matching gift. Pretty good since he basically only got one. Have I mentioned how hard he is to buy for?

Poor Brady didn't really match any gifts, this was as close as he came. But really, who wouldn't match Lego Rock Band? We've been having a great time with it. Thanks for sharing with us all Brade.

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On another note: We had Christmas Eve dinner with 4 of the missionaries from our area, The Oelrichs (from the ward) and the Fabelas (our neighbors)

It was yummy and fun. These people are great! Our funniest part of the evening was trying to get the above picture of whole group before dinner. I had to set-up the camera, start the timer, run down the stairs, get to my seat and look up and smile before the camera flashed. It only took 3 tries... whew! Brad took this video of the ordeal.

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Also, I couldn't help myself... I bought these t-shirts for the Elders. I had to get one for Brady too, cuz I liked them so much. They say,"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am!" They humored me and wore them over to our house yesterday (p-day) to show me. I thought I did pretty good on getting the right sizes. (And thanks Michael H. for being the delivery boy.)

All in all it was a really great season, despite the fact that I never got my tree decorated (hey at least it was up), the lights never got hung outside and I never got gifts made for my friends. Shameful, I know. These are things I'm really bugged about but have decided to just let go.... Instead, I can feel blessed that I was NOT stressed this season even though I had tons of extra stuff going on. I can be happy that we were mostly healthy and that we got to spend so much time together and that everyone was happy. We totally missed our families but really, we could get used to this whole "being alone on Christmas thingy". We got to hang out in our jammies ALL DAY and eat lots of junk and enjoy our gifts. Now I've just got to put together my new puzzle and I can feel that my Christmas 2009 was a success.

I'm including this last picture because I love it and I think Brad is a babe (messy hair and all)!