all my heart this night rejoices!

happy christmas eve to everyone!! :)

1. working at the bakery
even though it's christmas eve, it was great to work at the bakery. i love doing things to make people happy, and the santa hat man came in again. al came in again (just like every day). have i talked about al? he's a regular. same thing every morning. anyway, it was a good time, even though my knuckles were so dry they were cracking, even though i got in a fight with a baguette (seriously, i have the cuts to prove it - those things can be sharp!), and even though i stayed later than i was scheduled for. example of a happy thing: michelle and i were restocking the buche de noels, sometimes just referred to as buches, when one broke. oh well, happy christmas eve to us! we got to snack on it in the back. it was delicious.

"bite the buche!!" -michelle and me. that may or may not be my bite mark.

2. the gift from al, a tender heart moment
so as i mentioned before, al is a regular at the bakery. every morning he comes in around 8 for the same thing: the san francisco chronicle + a small coffee + the mug discount. he knows us all by name, and we sure know him. today he got his usual order, we chatted, and he left. around 2:30, he was back again with an envelope for everyone with their names written on it. i thanked him and told him merry christmas, but i didn't look at it's contents until i got out to my car. i was so tired, a little cranky (i worked some overtime today), and ready to go home. then i remembered the envelope in my apron pocket. i pulled it out, opened it up, and saw what he had placed in it for me. it was twenty dollars. i had to take a minute to have a tender heart moment and cry just a little bit. it was the sweetest gift. i'm so grateful for the reminder that this holiday season is about giving, and in remembrance of the gift that our savior gave to all of us - the gift of eternal life.

3. seeing my family
this afternoon when i got home, we drove to santa rosa to grandma coco's house. we had our usual christmas eve celebrations with grandma and the cook family! they are so funny, i just love listening to them tell their stories and have little conversations. it's always so nice to see family and i don't get to see them very often. yay family! yay for temples! yay for being together for time and all eternity! :)

4. christmas pj's
this year i got the most AWESOME christmas pj's evah!! yeah, i just only got a leopard print onsie, no big. i know you're jealous. you should be. but it's okay. i know santa will bring you something almost as awesome. haha. tomorrow i'll try to remember to post a photo. you definitely want to see this.

5. all my heart this night rejoices
this is the title of a christmas hymn written in 1656. this line, my dad and i think, is one of the most beautiful lines of christmas music ever written. this christmas season really is a time of rejoicing. my heart rejoices because our loving heavenly father sent us the gift of his son. it rejoices because christ was born. it rejoices because he died for us. it rejoices because through his death and the atonement, we are able to repent and return to live with him and our heavenly father again. it rejoices because we have been given the gift of eternal life. these two gifts alone - the gift of the son and the gift of the atonement - are the only gifts that i think i will ever really need (though others are lovely and appreciated, of course). i am eternally grateful to my savior and my heavenly father for all they have done for me and my family.

i'm grateful for the gospel in my life. i'm grateful for a family that loves me and that i get to be with for time and all eternity. i'm grateful for this holiday season. merry christmas, everyone! have a wonderful day tomorrow! :)

buddy the elf, what's your favorite color?

it's christmas eve eve!! we're so close, people! have i ever told you how much i love christmas? and the christmas season? well. i love it a lot.

1. happy people at the bakery
today i was on register at the bakery. it was so fun to see people festive for the holidays, so happy to be getting some yummies. there was one little old man in particular that just makes me smile every time i think about him. all he wanted was a chocolate chunk cookie and he was wearing a santa hat. he was so smiley and happy to be getting that cookie that i couldn't help but smile too. after that, i started saying, "happy holidays!" to everyone in the bakery. it made me feel happy inside every time i said it.

2. my sandwich time
so today after i got off work, i sat in the car for about 10 minutes, in silence, and ate my turkey sandwich from the bakery. i was quite content to sit and eat after having been on my feet for 8 hours.

3. nap time
when i got home from the bakery, i decided it was nap time. in a big way. i have not napped that hard in a loooong time, and let me tell you, it felt good. i intended to sleep for an hour...but it ended up being two. oops. i physically could not get myself up. buuuuut i don't really regret it at all. it was quite nice.

4. christmas shopping with walker
walker and i are geniuses. that's about all i can say, because i don't know who will be reading this post, but he and i are really good at coming up with ideas for presents and then finding them.

5. family night!
tonight, my family and i sat in front of the fire, eating pie and ice cream, watching elf, and popping bubble wrap. we're just cool like that. i haven't seen elf in waaaaayyyy too long. just about everything that comes out of buddy's mouth is awesome. it's silly, but i love this movie way too much. i took some still shots of some of the good parts. well, not all the good parts. just during the beginning, because then i started eating ice cream, and then i got bundled up in blankets, so i didn't take any more during the rest of the movie. i guess this is silly. but it's all good.

the code of the elves. the best way to spread christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

"bye, buddy! i hope you find your dad!"

i'm so excited for tomorrow! i'll be at the bakery from 6:30-2:30, so if you happen to be in yountville, stop on by. there's lots of good stuff waiting to be eaten! once i get home from work, the fam is heading to santa rosa to go to grandma coco's house to see the cook family and grandma. it's going to be a regular party!

merry christmas!! :)

listen to how tight this (w)rapper is!

this is going to be what i call "speed blogging" because it's 11:35 and i have to be at the bakery at 6 am tomorrow...whoops. if things are misspelled and my grammar is incorrect, i apologize ahead of time.

1. the bakery!
today i worked as a packer, which means i was packaging pretty much all the stuff that needs to be put in bags for retail. let me tell you, i packaged so much peppermint bark i was up to my EARS in that stuff. it was really good though, i definitely "bonded" with chef matt, the head baker. i also got to talk to alysha for a long time, which was super fun. i got to see a lot of people i haven't seen for an entire semester, so that was good!

2. miguels
so for dinner, my family likes to eat mexican food from miguel's, a little place here in town. i haven't had it in a looong time so it was nice to finally have it again, even if i still smell like mexican food.

3. caroling in napa
tonight we went caroling in napa with the morgans (lisa, olivia, luke, and kai), the navas (michelle and sebastian), and the morrills (suzanne and katie). it was so much fun! i've always found it slightly awkward to carol, just because, well, it is. but tonight was great! we went to downtown napa and we actually sang for a few different restaurants. at one place, they opened the doors for the guests to listen, but they were all still talking. at the other restaurant, they opened the doors and windows, but everyone stopped talking just to hear us sing. it was really fun, and they applauded us afterward. it was precious.

oh, side note, at one of the houses we caroled at, there was a bulldog who came to greet us. i think all of the hughes' died (another fun side note, i just typed out 'died' and 'dighed'...whoops). it made me miss homer so much, but it was so nice to hear some snorting again. i told my parents that i wanted santa to bring us a bulldog puppy. preferably in april when i am home for the summer. i told them that it was really important that he do that thing. we'll see if he ends up doing that for me.

4. telephone-pictionary
i have heard this game be called many different things, but our families call it pictionary-telephone. it's the game where you write a phrase, then draw a picture of that phrase, then write what you think the picture is showing, then draw a picture of the new phrase, and so on and so forth. you get the basic idea. it's always hilarious. our phrases always turn into hilarious things, like "goodie two-shoes" going to "the sum of two shoes, putnam" to "ingrown toe nails." we had another one that started out as luke shooting sebastian, and it turned into an indian shooting abraham lincoln. i found that one especially hilarious because we sometimes call sebastian "sebastian-ham lincoln." sometimes we think he looks like abe. it's good times. i haven't laughed so hard in a looong time.

5. the ride home
on the ride home, we just kept having word mix-ups. my dad made a joke about l. tom perry being quoted by p diddy on his twitter (december 21st, that's what's up!) and called him l. tom piddy...i guess you just had to be there. then we got egg nog shakes from jack-in-the-box (family tradition), and when i was taking the wrapper off the straw, it was so tight that it was squeaking. of course i had to tell the family, so i said, "listen to how tight this wrapper is!" my family heard,"listen to how tight this rapper is!" and expected me to play some rap song. it was funny. maybe you had to be there for that, too. but it was hilarious.

well, that was my day. now i'm off to sleep! night!