Christmas 2009: Ormonds

This Christmas was a blast. We decided to keep it real and return to our arctic roots. You can say we kept it realer than real. Going to Pocatello for the holiday was really fun. The Ormond horn of gathering was blown and it's forlorn bellow was heard from the far slopes of the Texan oil fields, to the high plains of Idaho's capital city, to the citris orchards of southern California. We all came bareing gifts of Nerf, Coach, and Tom Tom.

Having most of the Ormonds in one place at one time doesn't happen very often, but when it does watch out. The festivities began on Christmas eve. An Ormond family tradition is to exchange family gifts on Christmas eve. We each draw a name the year before. I drew Julie last year and couldn't figure out what to get her until Thanksgiving. She mentioned that she loved Us Weekly but her subscription was up. Can you be set up any better for a Christmas gift? I submit you can not.

Julie loved her subscription to Us Weekly. Natalie had Aaron, who is usually hard to shop for. Natalie is pretty skilled at shop-fu though. She found this crazy cool v-neck sweater at J Crew. AO loved it. AO gave Natalie a Coach purse, Natalie hasn't stopped looking at it.

Every year Natalie and I get the nieces and nephews a gift. Natalie got the nieces these awesome scarves, headbands, and lip gloss. They went nuts for them. The nephews were my responsibility and they were pretty trickier than I thought. I ended up stressing out over them. Tyler and Maxwell got car sets, Mitch got a Nerf sword, Fisher got a Bionicle, and Alex got a rubber ducky. They all loved their presents.

The day after Christmas we decided to go to Lava Hotsprings, which is always an adventure. If you haven't experienced Lava Hotsprings you really need to. The place is G to the H ghetto, but pretty awesome at the same time. Go figure. We also had some Thai food in Lava that was awesome. It was really fun to hang out with the brothers and sisters again. We don't get many chances to have grown up only hang out time so when we do we make the most of it.

All and all Christmas was pretty fantastic. Hanging out with my family is super fun. And I decided to give the world a Christmas gift this year in the form of a Christmas beard. At first Natalie wasn't too hip to the shag carpeted face version of Josh, but she's coming around. She says I look like a rugged mountain man. I'm trying to arrange a lumber jack photo shoot. I have the flannel and the face scarf, all I need is an axe.

Next year Christmas will be with the Wyricks in San Diego.