"What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Let me just say that I love 'The Grinch'! Just ask my cousin Cassi, she'll tell you how much I love it. But even more then my love for the Grinch, is my love for the quote and the meaning it carries. This Christmas was different for me, I caught myself reflecting on past Christmas' and the memories that I cherish and hold close to my heart. The memories began flowing on Christmas Eve as I sat at my grandma's house and thought of the changes that have taken place over the past few weeks, months, and years. I sat on my grandma's fireplace mantel and watched as absolute chaos broke out trying to get presents out. In past years my Grandpa would take control and gather all the kids into the room and then begin to pass out the presents one by one. This year it seemed as though the presents were just tossed to and fro without any order to it. I missed the order, and the excitement on everyone's faces; especially Grandpa's as we watched each other open presents. Christmas morning brought a whole wave of other memories as I laid in bed and didn't want to get up, normally I would've jumped right out of bed and ran to open presents. Not this year, I just laid there and had to basically be pried from my bed (maybe it's because my bed is so cozy) When I crawled out of bed my dad told me that he was going to take my grandma out to my Aunts house so she could spend the morning with them. That brought even more memories to mind. As a little child I loved Christmas morning, as every child does. But I think I loved it for more then the getting presents, and the usual love of Christmas morning. I loved that every Christmas morning, without fail, after we opened our presents my Grandma and Grandpa Christensen would come to our house to see what Santa brought to us. After we were down showing them the toys that we got we would pick one or maybe two of our favorite gifts and go out to The Kirtons (my dad's sister) house to show our cousins what we got. I remember sitting out there looking at their presents and playing with them. We would spend a little bit there then we would head to the Swilors (my dad's other sister) house to see what they got. Now I don't have a very good memory from my childhood but I do remember this. Going to the Swilors house was probably my favorite part of it all because Luke and Charlie were the older "cool" cousins and they always had the BIG toys to play with. Plus, it was probably the one time a year when we actually acted like we liked each other, because we would play together so much! (I'm not the only one who remembers this, Kim does too, so I know I wasn't dreaming this) The one thing that I remember playing with all the time was their basketball game, you know the ones at arcades where you just sit there and throw the ball into hoops, yup they had one of those!! So as I drove away from the Kirton's house this morning I was taken back, and sat and remembered those years as a youngster being so excited to play with my cousins on Christmas morning. One last memory that I had going through my head is the simple playing with your Christmas gifts right after you finish opening them. Well I don't know about you, but for me, the older I get the less "toys" I get, therefore, what do you do after you open your gifts? Normal people would probably sleep, or try on their clothes, maybe watch a movie they just got. But I'm not normal, me, I went and cleaned my room. Yes folks, I cleaned my entire room the moment I had finished opening gifts...what is wrong with me!!! Well to end this I just want to say that this Christmas; although it was different really meant a lot to me; probably because for the first time in a long time I remembered all these things that mean so much to me. I love you all and hope you had a fabulous day!