Karl and Angela Rees

Merry Christmas everyone! We just spent our first Christmas together as husband and wife, and it was fun. Well, we sort of spent some of the holiday season together last year, and out in DC too, but we weren’t quite engaged yet. Being out here at this time of year brings back a lot of memories of the week before we got engaged. That was such a fun time.

But let’s back up a second. Tuesday night, while we were still in Utah, Angela went to Enrichment. There was a yummy dinner and a white elephant gift. There was an odd lesson that evening by a woman we have affectionately labeled "Santa Nazi." She shared a story about her 4 year daughter being grateful that it was Jesus’ birthday instead of Santa’s. She was grateful that she taught her children Santa was pretend. Angela couldn’t believe she would share such ideas in a religious setting. We think that you can still celebrate Jesus’ birthday and have the fun of Santa.

Karl spent the week resting and finishing his brief that was due the 23rd by midnight. Not sure how you can do both, but he did (well, part of it was that he had a cold all week). He also did some Christmas shopping.

Wednesday night we went to the Christmas carol at Hale Center Theater in Salt Lake. One of the professors at the law school plays Scrooge. It was a great performance.

Thursday Angela had a work party at PF Changs and got off work early (which didn’t do that much good since Karl was busy working on the paper most of the afternoon). That night we had a mini-Christmas celebration. We had Karl’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner (potato salad, deviled eggs, sausage). We also unwrapped a couple of presents--one from each other and both gifts from our grandparents (THANKS). Karl got a camelback (a hiking backpack with a canteen and straw built into it) and Angela got an MP3 player and stopwatch for running on the track. We also watched the BYU game.

Friday, Karl finished up his paper just in time to go to the airport. Literally. We stopped at Kinkos to print it out and mail it on our way to the airport. Our first flight was delayed 15 minutes and our second flight was delayed 2 hours. We decided to rent “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at the airport. It helped us kill the 3 hours of waiting. We arrived in Baltimore at 11:30. Becky and Wayne picked us up for the 1 hour drive home.

Christmas Eve, Karl spent a lot of time making Christmas Eve dinner. We also helped make the Christmas cookies that evening. We played some fun games and read the Christmas story out of the bible. We went to bed pretty late that night (by Angela’s standard’s—it was kind of early for a Rees Christmas though, just before midnight).

Christmas morning we got up early so we could open presents before heading down to Chris and Katie’s ward (Katie was in charge of the Christmas program). Karl got a new hard drive, tie rack, web cam and jacket. Angela got a few shirts, pants, jacket, hat and game. (We also got some pretty drapes from Karl’s mom that we had already picked out on Thursday). We both really enjoyed our presents. After unwrapping presents, we got ready for church and headed down to Charlotteville (2hr). Katie asked us to join in the choir. That was an adventure since we never practiced the songs, but they weren’t too hard. After church we went to Chris and Katie’s. We had some appetizers to hold us over for dinner. They were yummy. We watched a couple of movies, ate dinner, and played some games. For dinner we had two kind of turkey breast (one in the oven and one on the BBQ), mashed potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and cheese cake. Yummy for my tummy. Everyone but the parents stayed overnight and we played games a lot today (Settlers, which our tag team one once, and Imagine-if, which is an absolutely hilarious game for seeing how well you know someone).

We’re looking forward to another great week of holiday festivities. Karl’s sisters Amy and Susie arrive in 2 days, which means the whole Rees clan will be here under one roof. It’s going to be such a crazy fun time. And then we go back on Saturday. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.