What On Earth, I Forgot to Post About Christmas!?!

I AM SO ASHAMED OF MYSELF 😞

How in the world I let this happen, I do not know, but I forgot to post about Christmas! It's absolutely one of my most favorite times of the year and I may have mentioned it in a post but I never really discussed what this year's Christmas was like. I know everyone is probably exhausted of hearing about the holidays and wants us to just move on with the new year, leave 2016 in the past, blah, blah, blah. However, I do not care. I am going to write about Christmas and I am going to LOVE it! 

With my split families, we always end up having multiple Christmases on both my mom and dad's sides. This year we had 5 Christmas celebrations in total. Somehow this year, we managed to get them all finished on Christmas eve and Christmas day, which in my family is an absolute miracle. On Christmas eve, we had my dad's family themed Christmas. This was our 7th year for this tradition and our theme this year was Around the World. This tradition started out with a simple Ugly Christmas Sweater theme and from then we have had Hawaiian, Redneck, Star Wars, Disney, Carnival/Circus, and rounding up to this year's Around the World Christmas. We each dressed to represent a different country. We had representatives from Germany, Norway, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Mexico, Egypt, Australia, and I went as Russia. We had different foods from around the world like a taco bar, fried rice, hot dogs, and cookies from Italy. We also played a few games from around the world which included a dizzy bat relay that ended in many laughs and falling family members. My aunt and uncle got each of us four girls an inflatable hammock! When we woke up on Christmas morning, we opened presents from my dad and stepmom and each of us sisters exchanged the gifts we bought for each other. Some of my favorite presents from them were a pair of roller blades (AA and I are playing to tear up campus on our blades), Sephora's favorite lipsticks, glosses, and liners box for this year, and a Forever 21 giftcard (I may or may not have already used that.) After that we got dressed and ready to go out to my step-grandparent's house for my stepmom's side of the family Christmas breakfast and present opening. I got an electric mixer so I can more efficiently make cookie dough and other yummy things at school now! It was the first holiday with my Nana Roxanna being gone so that was pretty hard for everyone but the family time being together was much appreciated. After breakfast, A and I went out to our mom's house to wait for S and O to get here from their mom's house so we could have our family Christmas with them. My favorite part of Christmas after being with family of course is giving. I love to watch people open the presents that I get for them. I am undeniably a giver and it makes my heart ecstatic when I get to see the reactions of my parents and siblings when they see their gifts. My favorite gifts from my mom and stepdad were tickets to see TwentyOne Pilots with Judah and the Lion and Jon Bellion (eeeeeeeppppp!!!!), lots of Old Navy clothes, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which I haven't got the chance to read yet because my to-read list is quite excessive at the moment.) After that I was feeling very overwhelmed by the disorganization of all of my new things that I had gotten so I spent an hour or so organizing my room and putting things away (it is how I am.) Then for dinner, my mom's side of the family came over for a traditional Christmas dinner and presents. My precious cousins, ages 7,3, and 1, were such a hoot to have running around the house and always bring so many giggles. This was an amazing Christmas and I am so very blessed with such large families who are so giving and loving.

The hammock I got was purple!

For New Years, I was boring and the step-siblings were here, which doesn't happen very often, so I stayed home with them and we watched Ghost Adventures and Ninja Warrior for most of the night while drinking sparkling grape juice. We watched the ball drop, acted like hooligans for a few minutes, made lots of "I haven't done blank since last year" jokes, and then went to bed. 

In other news, today I did the unthinkable. I, Emily Claire Cooper, took... A BATH. (insert gasping and revolted looks.) I know, most of you are probably thinking that I am a filthy person and that it should not be such a shocking thing that I took a bath, but trust me, this is monumental. For those of you who don't know, I am incredibly germaphobic, so when it comes to bath, I am quickly overcome with feelings of dread about being surrounded by wet filth. You may ask then, why Emily did you take a bath if you hate them so much? Well, for Christmas I got a bath bomb and I just felt the urge to use it. I also needed to shave my legs and such so I thought, why don't I make this one collective journey and power through this? I took a shower before I got in the bath so that all of my filthiness would be washed away and then I popped my A Thousand Wishes bath bomb from Bath and Body Works into the tub and I stared at the water, contemplating whether or not I was prepared for this endeavor. I hopped in before I could convince myself that this was more of a terrible idea than I already thought it was and there I was. Sitting in the bathtub. I felt pretty anxious the whole time and could not relax so I soaked up the bath bomb smelly-goodness into my skin, shaved my legs and pits and got out as quickly as possible. I then proceeded to get back in the shower for a quick rinse and then felt much better. I know, you all probably think I'm crazy but it just plain grosses me out. So I probably won't take another bath for a few years. After my bath, I put makeup and a cute little dress on, for honestly no other reason than that a) I wanted to try out one of my new lipsticks and b) I have not put makeup or real clothes on for quite some time and felt it was needed. I quite literally have nowhere to go but I wish I did because my makeup looks pretty darn good. 

I am really enjoying writing/posting every day. It gives me something to look forward to and do every day which is nice, especially since I still have roughly two weeks left until I have to go back to school. Thanks so much for supporting my writings and I hope you are enjoying my posts! ~Em