Whew.
The past three days went by so quickly!

Friday: We arrived in Marshall and moved into my grandparents' house. There were 17 of us, which is smaller than usual. John and I worked all evening on our big present for our parents. He taught me so much about imovie- I am in love with it! Fading out the sound, freezing the picture, and the double fades are sweet:) That evening, in the typical independent style of my family, we stayed home while everyone went to the early church service...when I was little, we always went to midnight church. I just did my best to stay awake. There was something mystical and kind of medieval about being up that late to celebrate Christmas, and everyone in my immediate family agreed, so we went later. My sequenced, midnight blue top was a little too nightclub for a small-town church, though. Everyone was in jeans and festive sweaters! We all had fun, though, especially my mom, who likes to sing Bass, alto, soprano, and the descant, and she alternates between those at any given time during the hymns. It's really hard to stay on key standing next to her!

All of the kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve, which is something brand new, but which I suggested, Minnesota wisdom apparently, to dissipate the melee that usually is Christmas Day with 17 people. I got pink fleece gloves, but none of the bedlam was averted. So much for that sage advice.

Saturday: I woke up at 6am, after about four hours of sleep, to open my stocking with everyone else. My brother got the best, um, loot: Che Guevara lip balm, sock-monkey bandaids, and Napoleon Dynamite chapstick. We opened presents for another 6 hours, with two breaks, until the end of my cousin Eli's presents, when he started screaming and we had to stop. My parents, who are way too generous, got me a digital camera that I can use at school. I can record their presentations now, and show them at conferences! Later in the afternoon, everyone cooked or watched the Pistons. I made a list of Spanish verbs I can use at school. My favorite is subrayar, because I must sound so gringo-ish saying "draw a line under the word, like this" over and over. In the evening, everyone tried to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" over the twins yelling. My attention span has gotten so small after working with 8-year-olds, so I made Hootycreek cookies.

Sunday: All of us got dressed up to have our family portrait taken, which was my grandma's anniversary present. Somehow it only took 30 minutes to finish. After lunch, we drove to my great aunt and uncle's house, which is an amazing, half-finished house in the woods near Kalamazoo, Michigan. They delighted us with stories of their travels to Rome and Ecuador, and my uncle thought it was so funny that I thought that the pictures of them eating guinea pig were disgusting, and so we got to see those a lot. My cousin, who's 29, lives in Rome, and is an incredibly bad influence, promised to show my brother around when he gets there. Oh well. He can't get in much more trouble than a party when he needs to take someone to the ER with a stab wound, and that already happened. Whew.

ps-listen to Emmanuel played by Chris Botti. It's the most beautiful trumpet playing I've ever heard. I'll probably never do anything that well in my life!