So. My family.

As I’m sure is the case with everyone out there, my family has their own nice little traditions for Christmas time. Some of the more normal ones include opening pjs from my grandparents on Christmas Eve, watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve, building a fort for all the kids to sleep in, having a Christmas Eve program complete with a play in which Katie always gets to play Santa Claus…the usual.

There is one Allen family Christmas tradition, however, that I have yet to find a match for: the Lighting Ceremony.

Now, as you may have guessed, this tradition is all about turning on all the Christmas lights in my parents’ front yard for the first time. What you may not have guessed is what accompanies said electrical display. Let me break it down for you:

1) Family and friends arrive. Usually between 4 and 5. This is my mom’s whole side of the family, whatever friends my siblings invite, and whatever other family is lucky enough to be in town. All in all, we end up with a crowd of 35-45 people.

2) Crowd relocates from comfortable privacy of the indoors to the front driveway. Yep, the front driveway.

3) Crowd eats homemade chili, store bought french bread, and pink lemonade. Always this combination. Always. Still in the driveway, people.

4) Crowd moves to the street/sidewalk in front of the house

5) Crowd participates in program, which includes but is not limited to: introduction/history of the Lighting Ceremony, Q&A time with Mark Allen (the light putter-upper), singing various Christmas songs, freezing, and finally, a countdown during which several small children run to various outlets so they can plug in the lights when the countdown reaches 0.

6) Crowd sings “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as we walk inside. (Except for this year, when we sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and then sang the Sun Devil fight song, in honor of the big game…for all the good that did.)

That, people, is the lighting ceremony.

We’ve done this in the rain.

Let me just say that no matter how embarrassed we all act when a car slows down as it’s passing by to see what those idiots are doing in their driveway, we all love the lighting ceremony. My mom started it, 25 years ago, and it’s grown to be one of everyone’s favorite Christmastime traditions, including mine. Perhaps, someday, I’ll have the initiative to start a tradition that brings my whole family together to do something completely strange once a year.

love my fam.

You’re all invited next year, just so you know. You’ll have to give me your address so we can send you an invitation (yes, invitations are sent). Think you can handle it?

Here are a very few pictures from the blessed event - the big numero 25 - the Lighting Ceremony, 2008!

Ready to rumble.

Papa (Grandpa) enjoying his chili.

My sister Julie and her beau Chris enjoying THEIR chili.

My adorable cousin Brooke enjoying MY chili.

(here is where I would post pictures of the actual ceremony, including the crowd outside the house and the lights…but sometimes I suck and don’t get good pictures of such things. Perhaps I will get them from my mom and post them later…)

Relocated to the indoors to watch the sucky mcsuckerson ASU v UofA game. That’s all I’m going to say about that. De-press-ing.

Anyway, it was a fun time, as usual. Can’t believe it’s been going on for 25 years! And to think it’ll probably keep going on for another 25…

-Katie

Who got the “You’ve Got Mail” reference? Who got it? Love you.

Yay for turkey day!

Mostly because we got to spend it with Dallin’s family. I mean, I love Thanksgiving with my fam and all (duh), but really, we don’t get to see them hardly at all, so it’s so nice when we do! Especially on a grand day of thanks.

As odd as it may seem, we met up with them in Las Vegas, since Thanksgiving was happening in St. George and apparently that was the most convenient airport for them to fly into. But that was just fine, because it meant we got to spend a day in Vegas! Dallin and I left pretty late Tuesday night, so we didn’t get to the hotel until about 2ish, and then we were up at 6 on Wednesday morning to go to the Las Vegas temple. We spent a few hours there. I didn’t get any pictures because it was cold and rainy, but it was such a good experience for us to all be there together doing temple work. After that, we went back to the hotel for a nap…which turned into more of a sleep…and left at about 5 to hit up the strip and see a show.

Dallin, his little bro Dayton, and I walked around to check some of the sights of Vegas:

The sweet fountain at the Bellagio…which we actually only ever saw from across the street because of timing issues…

See?

The “Trevi Fountain” at…Caesar’s Palace? Not sure…but this one doesn’t have gelato shops surrounding it like the real one does…sigh…

My very most favorite hotel…THE VENETIAN! Yes, I have a favorite Vegas Strip hotel…you gotta problem?

Not only does this place have replicas of stuff from one of my most favorite cities ever, but this is also the very hotel that houses the Phantom theater! Dallin and I came here when he surprised me with Phantom tickets in July. (story here). And, you should probably know…me+phantom=heart. Like, a big heart with glitter on it.

Anyways, after our jaunt down the Boulevard, and dinner at Chipotle (mmm…Chipotle) we headed to Planet Hollywood to catch the hypnomagician show we had tickets for. We effing waited for an effing while before they effing let us in to see the effing guy….if you don’t get my drift, the guy was a cusser. Like, an Irish cusser. We walked out after 15 minutes or so. LAME. But then, we went and saw “Bolt.” Disney rocks. They just do. It was a good movie! And there was only one f-bomb in it…

sometimes I think I’m funny.

Thanksgiving morning, we packed up and headed off to St. George. It was actually a pretty short drive.

Cool foggy-ness on the drive.

St. George was great! I’ve driven through numerous times, but I’ve never actually stopped there. My favorite part was the leaves- fall leaves! Those just don’t happen round these parts.

Beautiful!

Dallin’s family (we were with his Dad’s side) is wonderful. They were very accepting and made me feel very welcome, even though I didn’t know a lot of them! I gotta be honest, a main topic of conversation was the Twilight movie, so of course I had something to say about that! The actual Thanksgiving meal was delicious, and I even found a way to stuff myself without using my back teeth!

(Side note: My teeth/gums/cheeks/mouth are all doing fine. I actually had bruises on my cheeks, which made me sad…but they are gone now. Side note over.)

Unfortunately, all the happiness was much too short lived. After a too short nap…

…it was time to hit the road. I had to get back for work (stupid work…grumble….hate…job….grumble grumble) so we were off. It was definitely much too soon, and it made me sad! Dallin was incredibly sweet and drove the whole way…probably just as much for his own safety as for my well-being…

We drove past AZ Mills mall at about 12:30 AM on our way home, and saw the parking lot PACKED and freeway exits backed up for a mile! Craaaaazy. So glad I’m not into Black Friday shopping (and also glad I had the day off at American Eagle…)

I’m so grateful for my husband and my family. I’m grateful for the Church, for my Heavenly Father, for my Savior, and for my testimony. I’m grateful for my home, food, clothing…all the things that make my life so comfortable. I’m grateful for this country, and for the beautiful Earth we have been given. I’m grateful for good friends. I’m grateful for music, for flowers, for cookies, for rain, for good movies, for telephones, for good smelling candles, for Dr. Pepper, for pillows, for cars, and for air conditioning. Did I already mention my husband? Maybe I should again…my husband.

It was a spectacular Thanksgiving! What are you grateful for?

Hello all! I trust everyone had a fantastic Halloween. We did, anyway, On Thursday we went to our ward’s Halloween party dressed as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, as seen here:

Unfortunately, Dallin didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend on his costume…so he ended up looking more like a priest than a Cuban band leader from a 50s show. But what can you do? Hopefully my brilliant ensemble saved it.

Anyway, it was a great party! It was fun to see everyone dressed up, there was good food including…

a cotton candy machine! Woot! Of course Dallin had to try his hand at spinning his own cotton candy. The results were…less than perfect.

Yeah, he should practice more. But hey, it was still very sugary and turned our mouths purple, so the true purpose of the cotton candy was fulfilled. We also did pumpkin bowling…Dallin bowled a strike right away but I wasn’t so lucky.

I just couldn’t knock those bottles over! Oh well…I can still beat Dallin at real bowling.

After the party, we went over to my parents’ house to carve pumpkins! Our pumpkins were slightly lopsided since we waited till the last minute to buy them and so got the runts of the litter, but they still worked… we just had to stand them upside down, since they wouldn’t stand right side up. Hey, don’t dis our pumpkins!

Wouldn’t want anything to happen to our pumpkin in transit, especially since Dallin apparently gave birth to it…

The pumpkin carving stations. This is serious business.

The rest is all a little fuzzy, since I went to work carving my own pumpkin. I had to take a break to get some homework done, and by the time I finished Dallin had already finished and was fast asleep, so I didn’t get to take any pictures of him with his pumpkin, but here it is!

Groovy, no? And now for mine. Prepare to be amazed!

Mm hmm. No holding of applause is necessary; just let it all out. Oh yeah, my mom’s pumpkin was really good too:

Hers was actually Halloweeny, which gets her extra points, I guess. Did I mention the excellence of my pumpkin?

I’m so proud.

Anyway, that about does it for the pictures, which means I don’t have any actual pictures of Halloween night, which is sad because it was awesome! I had to work all day (grumble grumble) and then I met Dallin at my parents’ house. My mom’s side of the fam gets together every Halloween, so we got to see everyone. Cute costumes, great food (including homemade caramel apples- yum!), and good times. Jacob and Serenity came over, and it’s always great to hang out with them. I was completely exhausted by the end of the night, and consequently did not make it through “Night of the Living Dead,” but Dallin still pretended to be a zombie when we got home, probably just to make me feel included. So sweet.

So, that’s about it for our first Halloween as married people! It was a whole lot of fun. I’m still a little sickish, mostly exhibited by extreme tiredness. Hopefully it will go away soon…it’s really annoying to just want to sleep all the time.

HAPPY NOVEMBER!