Merry times

As I sit writing this on a January Sunday morning, I feel a little sad for this time of year. You get everything that's bad about Christmas (except perhaps for stress and mess), but you don't get any of the good. It's a depressing time.

At the same time, I look back fondly on the holidays that just happened. Since my last blog post of the year is a year in review, Christmas is long over before I backtrack to write about it.

I worked December 21-23, but I got Christmas Eve off. On the 23rd, my mom had been kind enough to make gingerbread while I was at work so we could make gingerbread houses. I hadn't made a gingerbread house since 1996. (Graham cracker houses are not gingerbread houses.) They were a little difficult, but they worked out.

Notice how I used leftover pumpkinundation things--candy corn marshmallows for the roof, and pumpkin spice chips for the lines.

My mom did this one...

...and this one.

 On Christmas Eve, we took my grandparents to the Old Spaghetti Factory. Since I'm a sucker for anything seasonal, I got a chocolate peppermint creme soda, which would have been better without the chocolate. It was the third and final time I drank soda in 2015. (The other times were on St. Patrick's Day, when I had some kind of green drink that obviously had Sprite in it, and my niece's birthday, two days before Pioneer Day, when I had "Brigham's Brew" root beer.)

That night, while my mom made preparations for dinner at our house the next day, I made the rest of the gingerbread into cookies. I'm no artist, but these turned out better than last year's.

For Christmas I got a food processor, which should come in handy, especially in conjunction with the vegetarian cookbook I got for my birthday. So far I've only used it to cut up vegetables for a delightful carrot soup, but my mom used it to crush Oreos for a dessert. It should make things easier.

My other main gift was a FitBit Surge watch, which I didn't get until yesterday and is a combination birthday/Christmas/my own money present. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to set it up yet. I am quite annoyed that with 2015 technology, there are still compatibility issues. But I mostly want it for trail runs, and trails are all snowed over right now.

I also got a "Letters to Santa" game and a miniature "sandbox" with no sand.

I spent Christmas day in my H&M Christmas sweats. I was Vector for Halloween, but it was on Christmas that I had to keep telling everyone "These aren't pajamas." Christmas was very similar to last year in that it began snowing late on Christmas Eve and we had a white Christmas; but the difference this year was that there was already lots of snow on the ground.

During New Year's week, I had to work every day except for New Year's Day. That will make it less difficult to return to work tomorrow.

I was delighted on New Year's Eve to hear about the new law banning microbeads. I've had some face washes with the beads in them, and I just assumed the companies were intelligent and ethical enough to use some biodegradable material. I was furious when I learned they were simply plastic and were wreaking environmental havoc. What moron does that?! I'm glad the new law is in place. And if you don't like the new law, you're either a moron or a jerk.

I spent New Year's Eve at a friend's party. With the exception of my mission, it was the first time in my life I didn't spend New Year's Eve with my parents. Among other games, we played a game where we pretended to be at pseudo-academic conferences; I answered questions for "cow midwifery" and "my time on Hamburger Island." They asked me to propose a New Year toast with our sparkling cider. (What's the point of having a New Year's party if you can't remember it?) As I walked home that night in the less-than-10-degree weather, I had to play "Auld Lang Syne" on my phone.

I did pretty good with my 2015 New Year's resolutions, with the exception of my weightlifting one, my least favorite form of exercise. It started out fine, but then spring came and I switched to running and never went back to weights. So my 2016 goal is to do strength training at least once a week. I also had a goal to do hour-long runs, and I got all the way up to hour-and-a-half-long runs, so I'm satisfied with that. I was pretty good with my non-exercise goals as well.

On New Year's Day we had a traditional extended family meal at Golden Corral, my grandparents' favorite. I was astonished with how much food my cousins wasted, including an entire piece of carrot cake. How can you waste carrot cake!?

My stake also did a New Year's Day night party at the Bountiful Rec Center. The only fun activity I did there was swimming, because free swimming. You better believe I didn't set one foot in the ice skating rink.

And now it's the worst month of the year. I'm trying to live my life dwelling on the positives of the particular time of year. But it's hard for me to find positive things about early January. I guess if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.