Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

Titled after one of the best Christmas songs out there. (Thanks NSYNC!) 'Tis the holiday seaon and talk about being different! I think most people get into a routine around the holidays, Christmas Eve spent with certain family, Christmas day with others. Being a lifelong student I've gotten used to a wonderful two to three week break at the holidays. News flash... That doesn't happen with a big kid job!! Do you know what I was doing on Christmas Eve? Working!!!! This may not surprise those of you out there with big kid jobs, but as someone who's been in school for their entire life... it. was. weird. I mean there were actually parts of the day that I forgot Christmas was the next day!! Leading up to Christmas, I had to constantly remind myself to wrap presents before leaving to go home because of how close it was to the holidays. "Normal" holiday routine dictated that I would fly in on the 22 or 23 and at least have a little time before the holiday. Nope. Reality check. This is the big kid world. Time to step it up. But all in all it was a good Christmas... Let's recap:

• Rode in an elevator with a live reindeer while volunteering at Wonderlab. (Reindeer's name was Noel, she was a little anxious in the elevator.)
• Got into work early on Christmas Eve just to be able to leave early, which was successful as most people were sneaking out around lunch!
• Received a Christmas bonus!!
• Drove the 3.5 hours home with no issues, just a few meows from my passengers.
• Discovered that for whatever reason my parent's bulldog really wants to be friends with me, the allergic one. (Just made it through the terrible 36 hours that it takes for me to semi-adjust to being around a dog.)
• Went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church.
• Gave and received some great Christmas gifts (Going to a Hawks game with my dad!! Score!!)
• Ate an amazing Christmas dinner with all my favorites thanks to my mom!

Now I get to just laze around for the rest of the week. Loving it! I do have a few plans I'm really excited about... The 5th annual high school cross country reunion is tonight! Can't wait to meet up with the amazing ladies from that team! Also sounds like for the first time since high school I'm going to see some of girls I played travel softball with for the majority of my teenage years. Very chill break, but I'm loving it! Almost feels like the first time life has calmed down all year! Speaking of all year, look for a few new entries before the new year in which I recap 2013 and set up a few resolutions for 2014! Keep living the dream!

P.S. I opened this entry by giving a shout out to NSYNC and their famous Christmas song... The video below was my other favorite of this Christmas season...