Christmas 2007

This Christmas was a huge success. Sunday we kicked it off with The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. It was a whole bunch of dancing and Christmas singing, sounds lame, trust me, I know. Ever since my mom told me that I was going, I was extremely reluctant. So Mary ended up coming with us and it turned out to be pretty good. The Rockettes(for those of you as clueless as I was) are a bunch of girls who dance, but they do all the exact same moves, at the exact same time. It was actually incredible to watch them, and they did this "fall" that was un-freaking-believable. So overall, I was surprisingly impressed and entertained.

We started off the giving part of Christmas with another Mielke-Gardner-Sandison Christmas Eve, which is always a blast. Our family is always a blast to hang out with and there are many laughs. We always do a Secret Santa gift exchange and my Uncle Dan had me and I got a new pair of snowboard gloves, very nice! Throughout the night, a funny skit was performed, some drunken carols were attempted, and a good attempt at some volleyball. It was another great Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was spectacular. The only speed bump was my sister finding it necessary to wake up at God-forsaken 7:00 in the morning. Why? Who knows. This Christmas could basically be summed up in two words,
1. Snowboarding
2. Sweatshirt
You may find yourself asking, "Derek, why would this be the definition of a successful Christmas?" Whoa whoa whoa! I'm getting there. Hold your horses, or reindeer. This year, my gifts almost entirely revolved around snowboarding and sweatshirts. I got snowboarding: gloves(previously stated), goggles, helmet, and a new outfit. It was sweet, who wants to go snowboarding this week? Because I am so ready. Now the sweatshirt: My brother got a new iPod from my Mom because his broke a while ago. So my mother found that her spending so much on Austin required her to spend as much on me(not complaining). When she was asking what I wanted for Christmas, I said,

"I really want a new snowboard jacket, and I guess I don't have many sweatshirts."

So whenever she would go into a store she would be thinking that she still needs to buy me things so she got me sweatshirt after sweatshirt. In all, I got 4 sweatshirts! I wanted sweatshirts but Mom, C'mon! Totally kidding, she said it would not hurt her feelings at all for me to return any of them, but I really like them so I don't think I am returning any of them. Other fun/good/noteworthy things I got were:

Remote Control Helicopter
Wallet
Visa Giftcard
Jeans
Shirts

In addition to the great morning I had, that afternoon I went to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner and some more gifts. We had this delicious dinner that my aunt slaved over all afternoon, I felt bad because I wasn't hungry but it was honestly so good. Then I opened a new pair of board shorts from my Aunt and Uncle, and the amazing game of Apples To Apples. It was a good conclusion to an amazing day.

But Wait! Theres More!

How could there be more, you ask? My Aunt pulls out this box for me and Austin to share, very typical. She is saying how she thinks we might enjoy it and not to worry about it if we don't. So I am thinking it is some dumb video game for the systems that I Never play anymore. I open it, it is the DVD series of Planet Earth!!! For those of you out-of-the-know, this is one of the most astounding TV series to ever hit Planet Earth(groaner foul, I know[If you don't know what that is, Boo You!{Just kidding, thanks for reading this}]) <-How you like that use of brackets? But back to Planet Earth, it is amazing, and maybe one of the top gifts of the day.

Tomorrow Mary and I are going out to breakfast and we are exchanging gifts. I hope hers isn't big because mine is not much but I think she will like it.

I'm excited.
Merry Christmas

Thanks for caring,
Hasta la Bye-Bye.