Christmas Card 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

It seems the rule for family Christmas letters is about a paragraph per person. I’m not sure how that translates for me as an individual so I will try to be brief.

For the past year I have been working for Mocavo, a new family history website. Up until recently my primary task has been content creation but I have just been promoted to run the sales and customer service aspects of the company. It’s all still new and a little intimidating but it’s a fun company and I look forward to the challenge.

When the weather was warm I took a few trips including hiking in Zion with my uncle and cousin (I think we all suffered from hypothermia), exploring Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons with some good friends (my first stay at a hostel), and the big one—driving across the country from Florida to Utah in a thirty-foot truck as my parents decided to buy a house in Provo.

Naturally with my family so close I have chosen to spend my first Christmas and New Year’s not in their company. Instead my friends have invited me to visit them in Pittsburgh and New York City which promises to be a memorable trip that I thankfully took the time off for before I was promoted.

I am still serving my congregation as a secretary and it seems I will continue to do so. To occupy the rest of my time I have picked up sewing my own bowties and have been dating a lovely young lady for the past several months.

I hope this letter finds you in good health and please know that you remain in my heart.

Warm regards and a Merry Christmas,

Christian

Photo by Mirielle

Work Christmas Party

Its a tough season to post anything here, partially since I'm so busy getting ready for my vacation to the East Coast next week but also because most of the cool stuff I have done recently revolves around making gifts for people who read this blog so instead I will tell you about my work Christmas Party.

A little over a month ago I volunteered to be on the party planning committee at work and I did this for two reasons: I am pretty snobby when it comes to food and decor, and it was a good excuse to not do work. Unfortunately for my time but my desire to throw a good party won over those and I ended up spending much more time getting ready for the party and stressed about it way more then anyone should about a similar event.

One of the big things we wanted was for people to walk into the room and instead of thinking "office party in an office building" they would instead react with a sense of wonder similar to waking up Christmas morning. To aid this we gathers many iconic gifts such as a BB gun, sled, toy truck, etc to fill out the tree along with the office Secret Santa gifts. HR also provided a great set of full Christmas stockings which really pushed the theme.

The most fun aspect of the whole deal though was that we collected family photos--mostly childhood era--from all the employees and displayed them unlabeled as centerpieces for the tables with the bonus of each employee then having a framed photo of their family to take home. Here's the one I picked:

The joke is that Allison has no soul and I have anime eyes.

Major credit to my Mother who provided a bulk of the ideas for the party, as well as Mirielle who did the food almost entirely by herself and frankly did just as much as I did. The party was a huge success and even our visiting COO remarked about how great it was.

I beamed with pride.

Oh yeah, and I got promoted.

Thanksgiving and Company

As one might expect, Thanksgiving came and went here in Provo much as it did through the rest of the nation. It was a pleasant change having it right at home instead of traveling a state over and using foreign kitchens.

Thanks to my father for the table pictures.

As is traditional I was in charge of the family scalloped corn. It's basically just creamed corn with butter and an egg binder--it sounds like it should be disgusting but I grew up with it so leave me alone.

My mathernal grandmother flew over for the week and my brother Seth came out for the holiday. Following dinner we trimmed the living room tree as well as the blue spruce in front of my parents' home. It looks spectacular with all the snow we got recently but did I take pictures? No.

Cuddling with Grandma. She is so uncomfortable.

The new window at my parents' by Allison and my mother.

In other news the family dog, Evee, has been declining pretty quickly the past week. My mother determined that perhaps it was time to consider euthanization and so made an appointment with the veterinarian. I arrived early to the house to spend my last few hours with Evee. She paced around the house, not anxiously, but as if she was looking to soak in the last bit of life and home she would feel.

Our last picture together; I'm making a funny face.

We arrived at the vet and she determined that Evee had a pretty bad heart mumor, arthritis, and severe periodontitis and that if we wanted to end her life it was an option but in her opinion Evee was still is good shape.

Needless to say:

I'm hoping to get my Christmas Card out soon, Mirielle will be taking my portrait hopefully sometime this week or early next. I should probably find my envelopes, but in the mean time...

Happy December!