The Christmas Letter That Didn't Go Out

I'm sure many of you know how bad I am about sending out Christmas cards or letters. Really, I am very jealous of people who do these so well. I just never know what to say without boring people to death or bragging about my son. The crazy thing is that I buy Christmas cards EVERY YEAR; I just never get around to sending them out. But I think they are a great way to sum up the year and let friends and family know what is going on in your life.

So, here's what our Christmas letter would have said if I had actually written one and sent it out.

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! As the year comes to a close, we wanted to let you know we are thinking about you and hope you are doing well. We have appreciated the friendship, love, and support you give to us and want to let you know what is happening with us.

I guess I should start with Tyler, since he is the center of our lives. He is getting so big (he's 21 months old), which brings mixed feelings of sadness about how quickly he's growing and joy at watching him learn and grow. He talks almost nonstop, even if we can't understand everything he says. He says a lot of words now like doggie, mom, daddy, one, two, cool, wow, I love you, hey, no, Sadie, beep, park, go for walk, and many more. He's quite the comedian and will do anything to make us laugh; he keeps us very entertained. He's definitely a daddy's boy and absolutely adores Chris. He follows him around the house when he gets home from work and runs to him for safety when I try to put him in bed or change his diaper. We feel very blessed to have him our family.

Early this year, Chris won a bid to do the plumbing for a big construction project in Hurricane. Since last year had been a slow, difficult year, we felt this was the opportunity Chris had been waiting for and were very excited about it. After praying, going to the temple, contemplating, etc., we received confirmation that we should move to St. George to start this project in August. So, we put our house on the market in May and moved to St. George with Chris' brother and his young wife in July.

Unforunately, the project was put on hold 6 weeks after we moved here, and we don't know when or if it will start. Our home still hasn't sold due to the down housing market. But we still feel like we are where we're supposed to be and we're doing what we should be doing. Luckily, we have had just enough work to keep our business going and our bills paid, but we wonder how much longer we can keep going.

At the close of this year, we wonder what is in store for the Hood's? We face the difficult decision of whether to keep plugging along with our business until the economy improves, or to close our business and look for other opportunities. Only time will tell.

Although, this has been a roller-coaster year (or, two years), we feel we have been very blessed, even if it hasn't been in the ways we had hoped for. We have witnessed small miracles, and we have felt love, concern, and support from our family and friends. We know our Heavenly Father knows who we are and is watching out for us. We've found that through good times and bad, we still love each other and are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We also look forward to the new year with hope and optimism. We hope you feel the blessings of our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ as well. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Love,
the Hoods

Christmas Day

Christmas was fun, busy and stressful this year. We went up to my mom's house a couple days before Christmas, because we sort of missed the snow and wanted to drive around and see lights on trees, other than palms, accented by the snow. We also needed some Christmas cheer, since this has been a difficult year for us.

Christmas morning we woke up to the snowy blizzard outside my mom's house. It was nice and relaxed with Chris, Tyler, Becca, and my mom. We only took a couple of gifts up for Tyler, since I didn't want to overwhelm him or have him spread all the pieces to his toys out at my mom's house. (Mostly, I didn't want to have to haul everything up there, just so I could haul it all back home.)

All of my family, except Mike and his family (who were blizzarded in at their house), came to my mom's house for the usual Christmas brunch. It was filled with the usual craziness of talking adults and laughing, playing kids running throughout the house. The grandkids did their usual gift exchange, which was very fun to watch (kids are so sweet with excitement over opening gifts). Tyler got a stuffed dog, which fell asleep hugging on the drive home. He loves dogs; infact, his favorite word is doggie (second favorite is mom, although he prefers dad).

Unfortunately, our trip was cut short due to worries about the storms. As soon as the kids had finished opening their gifts from my mom, we had to start heading home in an attempt to avoid a bigger blizzard and huge storm between Beaver and Cedar City. We were sad we didn't get to visit my grandparents or Chris' grandparents. Luckily, we made it home before a monsoon-type storm hit St. George a couple hours after we got home. Apparently, they ended up closing the I-15 between Beaver and Cedar City later that night and didn't open it again till the following day, so we did luck out coming back when we did.

When got home, we finished opening Tyler's presents and had a cozy Christmas barbeque dinner (despite the monsoon outside). Although, it was a small Christmas for us, we had a great time watching Tyler open his gifts. After opening each gift, he exclaimed either, "Wow!" or "Cool!" ("Cool" is his new word.) Kids make Christmas so much more fun. I don't know what we'd do without him.

Holiday Cheer

Today, as I was doing my mid-morning walk, I decided to walk through the mall parking lot for a short cut on my way back home. Unfortunately, I witnessed the craziness that this holiday can cause. Apparently, one guy had stolen another guy's parking spot. The 75-year old guy claimed he had been waiting for over 5 minutes for that parking spot. The 65-year old guy claimed he didn't see him waiting and said he'd been waiting for it, too. From my perspective, I honestly hadn't seen the 75-year old's blinker, but I was a annoyed (at first) for him, since this has happened to me before.

BUT! It didn't end there! Nope, the 75-year old guy kept spitting out a long list of swear words and telling the 65-year old to move his car or he'd beat him up. The 65-year old got out of his car (he being big a man big in stature - 6'5" and average weight) and asked him why he was yelling so much and what did he say he was going to do? The older guy rolled up his window leaving a crack and held up his pepper spray through the crack with a warning. The 65-year old said he wasn't going to argue anymore and told his wife to come out of the car to go into the mall.

Now, you may think this would end it. BUT, you'd be wrong. As the 65-year old couple was walking into the mall, the 75-year old man, who hadn't moved his car an inch (still parked behind the other car preventing him from moving even if he ever planned to), got out of his car holding a knife or some other sharp silver object and had decided to vandalize the other car.

However, the 65-year olds had turned around and started shouting at him through the parking lot that he better not touch their car or they would report him (They had his license plate number). The 75-year old still using his long list of foul words said he every right since they had stolen his parking space, which he kept mentioning he had waited for over 5 minutes for. He kept inching closer to their car with his sharp, silver object in hand each time they turned around.

Finally, the 65-year old wife came back towards the car as she was dialing for the police. When the 75-year old saw she was calling the police, he too started dialing the police. I finally walked away as I heard him tattling, "These people stole my parking space and wouldn't give it back."

I felt safe that the police could now deal with this holiday "cheer", and probably have a good laugh over it at the station.

Why had I stayed so long? Well, for the entertainment of it, and in case they needed a witness (in case anyone was killed over this parking space stealing incident).

THE KICKER IS: The parking lot wasn't full. Just six spaces down, there were plenty more spots. It's not like University Mall or SouthTowne Mall, where you may have to drive around for 30 minutes to find any parking spot. IT WAS JUST A CLOSE SPOT!

Ages have been guessetimates, used only to show how even seniors get upset over silly things.

The lesson I learned: shop online!

Our Christmas Tree

We put our tree up 2 1/2 weeks ago. Tyler has done a little redecorating since; for some reason, he can't seem to stay away from the sparkles and lights. He loves the tree, and always exclaims, "Wow!" every time we turn the lights on. I don't know where he got the "Wow!" stage from, but it is very cute and very sincere.

Let It Snow!

Surprisingly, St. George does get snow. It snowed all day on Monday, but nothing stuck. Then it snowed again all day on Wednesday and all night. We used these opportunities to drive around and look at the lights, so it would feel more like Christmas, which was a fun family outing.

Thursday, we woke up to a measly 2 inches for all that snowing effort. I had to laugh when I heard that schools had closed down due to the snow. For two inches??? You've got to be kidding me. (Later, I learned they don't have snow removal equipment here in St. George).

A lady at the doctor's office said it hasn't snowed like this in 17 years, so people here don't know how to drive in it. What??? It was only 2 inches. I was skeptical that it had really been 17 years, but, when I asked my neighbor friend about it, she said it's true. Apparently, it may snow briefly like once or twice a year, but it never sticks.

Chris isn't happy about the cold weather, which he says is what he wanted to leave behind when we moved here. He keeps walking around the house saying, "Just my luck. It snows worse than it has in 30 years just because I moved here." I never told him 30 years. As for me, it was only 2 inches, and I liked that it made things feel more like Christmas (Christmas lights on palm trees and cacti just doesn't quite do the trick for me).

Quirky Tag

I've been tagged. I guess I'm supposed to reveal 6 of my quirkiest quirks. Unfortunately, I have more than I can write, but here are some of my biggest oddities.

1. I look out the front window a few times a day for no reason at all. I don't know why I do this. I guess I'm just waiting for something exciting to happen.

2. I am OCD about light switches, hangers, and chapstick. Before I go to bed every night, I have to make sure all of the light switches are down (which can sometimes be difficult if there is more than one switch for one light). Unfortunately, the dumb electrician who wired our current house has made this impossible in the kitchen, family room, and downstairs family room. Chris likes to play tricks on me with the light switches, which drives me batty. My hangers have to be the same colors as the item of clothing that is hung on them, and my closet it arranged by color. My lips must be moistened to the perfect moistness. April and Chris will be happy to know I have relaxed a bit on this chapstick obsession. I do have several tubes of chapstick around the house, though.

3. I hate celery. I know this isn't really a quirk, but I had to get that off my chest.

4. I'm crazy about numbers. I mean really crazy. If I see numbers, I'll add them, subtract them, multiply them, rearrange them, ..... dwell on them till I go crazy...........or get a result I like.

5. I look at my own blog daily as if there might be something new or exciting on there. Usually, there isn't since I haven't written anything.

6. I use my bra as my secret pocket (for money, my cell phone, or keys). Chris and Tyler know my secret. My sisters think it's gross.

Well, I hope we're all still friends now that you know my secretest secrets. That's me. A little kookoo with a little normal in there too. I hope you'll want to share, too. Jill, cousin Anjella, April, Michele, and anyone else who might read this.

Wow!!!

While we were in town for the weekend, Chris and I decided to take Tyler to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point. My mom came along with us, which was fun, too. One the way there, Tyler got in a grumpy mood because he didn't want to sit in his car seat. No matter how hard we tried to get him excited to see the lights, it didn't work. He whined and cried and whined and cried. I was beginning to worry that it wasn't a good idea to go to see the lights with him being a miserable little pain. But as we drove into the opening where the lights started, Tyler finally looked up at the lights and stated, "Wow!!!" with so much excitement you could tell he meant it. He said "wow" a few times while we drove through the light displays. It was very cute. I didn't really think the lights there were that spectacular, but having a little child there made it so much more fun. Christmas is definitely better with kids around.