Christmas take TEN

Christmas 1 Comment

Warning… Instead of writing several posts about Christmas I decided to do it all as one post. So this is a super duper LONG post.. So grab a bite to eat and read away!
CHRISTMAS @ SCHOOL

Christmas left just as quick as it came… Okay maybe it didn’t leave that quick considering I attended TEN of the thirteen Christmas parties/get togethers that I was invited to. Christmas in my classroom was wonderful. Every kid at my school received a gift. One of my students got a basketball. I swear I thought he was going to cry. What a tender moment!!!!  He was so excited, jumping up and down saying that it was the best Christmas present he has ever gotten. I asked another student what she wanted for Christmas and she said a deck of Uno cards, but that she wouldn’t get them because they were too expensive. WOW… How sad. Another student just wanted a heater because her family didn’t have one in her home…. and the list went on with other students. I wish that I was super rich or had magical powers so that I could give all my students everything they needed and wanted. However… Santa did take that family an early Christmas gift of a heater. (wink wink)


GUERRERO FAMILY CHRISTMAS
The fiesta started on December 20th. My entire family got together at my sister Sylvia’s home. We had such a great time. It had been many years since everyone has been together for Christmas. This get together started at about 1 in the afternoon on the 20th and ended at about 5:30 pm the following day. Oh even though we had a blast, I think we all ended up super exhausted – but it was well worth it.


Even though we were celebrating Christmas, we decided to celebrate birthdays for Nikki (niece), Jessica, Jake (nephew) and my grandpa who turned 85. I can’t believe how quick time has flown.. She had her own Dora cake which she just devoured! Jessica was having a great time until someone broke her piñata stick while hitting the piñata. ha ha…. But she had fun on the (brinca brinca) jumper thing. There were 60 people there (friends & family) but mainly family. We had a jumper that the kids played in all night. We had two piñatas, lots of cookies and cake and ham, tamales, baked turkey and a deep fried turkey. There was dancing and singing. We also had a mariachi. I usually don’t like mariachi’s but this was just amazing because my grandpa was in heaven. It was just such a neat thing to see how happy my grandpa was… he even cried of excitement., actually, many of us cried just to see how happy he was. What a wonderful and joyous experience!!!

We also had the “real Santa” deliver gifts for all 18 kids. They were just amazed that it was a white Santa and not a Mexican one. ha ha. My sister Sylvia rented a Santa. The custodian at the school she works at is a Santa that works at one of the malls. He has a real beard and it looked so neat. Jessica loved Santa but only from a distance. She was afraid to get near Santa. We had a fun gift exchange game. My mom ended with the “joke” gift. She got KY Jelly and a pregnancy test. ha ha! Lucky for me, my mom doesn’t read my blog.. she’d kill me if she knew I wrote that in here.. she’d be so embarrassed… so SHH!!!! 🙂

My sister Sylvia and my brother Victor had their camper trailers there which is where we slept but only 20 people stayed the night. Ha ha.. the word only just cracked me up for some odd reason. Jessica really enjoyed it because she thought we were camping.


Anyhow, we had a campfire going outside, which was a lot of fun to sit around and tell stories, sing and reminisce of old times. I also made a video for my grandpa, which we watched on the wall outside of Sylvia’s home with the video projector. It had pictures from when he was a kid up until now. It was kinda cool! We also played ‘Loteria’ which is Mexican Bingo. Lots of fun!!! All in all… it was a fun and unforgettable time.

CRAZY SLEEPLESS NIGHT.. 12/23

My cousin Bob (visiting from UT) spent the night at my house. He has been so much fun to hang out with! He turned 24 a couple days ago. I hadn’t seen him since he was ONE! I have however kept in touch with him by phone, email & IM. So, needless to say, we did have A LOT of catching up to do. We watched a movie then we just talked and talked and talked about funny stuff and super serious stuff. About at 2:30 am we decided that we weren’t tired and that we should make cookies. Of course, every dang recipe that we had asked for butter and we didn’t have any. So.. we decided to go buy some. I could have easily driven to Circle K because they were obviously opened when we drove by several of them. But instead we drove to three grocery stores and none were open. So we decided to go to a gas station and figured we could just get butter there. NOPE! we were wrong, the conven ient store wasn’t very convenient, so we just got gas. Then we decided to try one more spot, but were out of luck. We were so wired because it was so late or early, depending on how you see it. Well.. we were driving and somehow my car had a mind of it’s own because we ended up at a casino. He had never been to one and of course I had to be the one to corrupt him. ha ha.. (hey, have fun now and repent later!) Oh, gosh.. luckily Ande is to lazy to read my blog and won’t see that I said that! ha ha. It was so much fun. We couldn’t believe how so many people were just throwing money away playing black jack. It’s insane!!!

While we were at the casino, my cousins brother Abraham called me. He was driving from California to spend Christmas with us. His brother Bob, obviously was already here as well as their mother who lives in Mexico City had already been were for 4 days. All three of them hadn’t seen each other in several years and were so excited to spend Christmas together. As I was saying, he called me at 4:00 am to tell me that he wouldn’t make it to Phoenix. I thought he was joking because he had called me earlier to let me know that he was already on the road. Then I realized that his voice sounded a little shaky and then quickly went from happy go lucky to panic mode. It turned out that he was driving on a curve on the mountain and speeding and his car didn’t make the turn so he rolled the vehicle a couple of times. H is car was completely totalled but could you believe it.. not one scratch on him! WHAT? I am just amazed that he was not hurt one bit. He told me that if he wasn’t wearing his seat belt that he’d be dead right now. Sheesh… if it were me, I would be super upset that my car was damaged… his response was, “this will teach me to be more humble” WHAT? okay.. where did he come from? ha ha He reminds me a lot of my sister Sarai. Has difficult trials, but always turns to the Lord for help and guidance. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t, but it’s just a tad different that I’m not sure how to explain. Sheesh.. cut me some slack! But seriously, he is one lucky guy to be alive. I guess the Lord has a plan for him and it just wasn’t his time. Anyhow, we decided that it was a sign for us to leave the casino. We got home and finally fell asleep about at 5:00 am… and then we were up again at 8:00 am super exhausted!

GUERRERO FAMILY CHRISTMAS ROUND 2

So my family got together again on Christmas Eve. We had originally gotten together on the 20th because several of us wouldn’t be at my moms on the 24th, including myself. Well it turned out that my sibling that said they could be there on the 24th ended up showing up with the exception of Sarai and her family… go figure! This night was fun, loud and as always out of control with so many people at my moms house. So anyhow, my friend Cindy and her daughter Marissa joined us for part of the evening chaos. It was fun having the family together again and enjoying each others company. We ate lots of yummy food and basically just sat around the kitchen table and laughed and sang and sang and sang… for a while, you would have thought that someone was dying by the sounds of the singing. It sounded more like a howling dog on it’s last breath. ha ha..

We had Santa come visit us again, this time I think it was just to confuse the kids. ha ha.. My brother Ralph dressed up like Santa. He was a riot as always. He has got to be the funniest and most raunchiest Santa I have ever met. ha ha.. He hugged the kids, laughed, danced and danced and continued to dance.. actually, it was more of a lap dance… on my moms lap.. What? You mean to tell that that this kind of stuff isn’t normal? I don’t know if my mom was crying of laughter or of disgust. ha ha.. maybe a little of both. Either way, he made everyone crack up and he made others pee their pants of laughter. What’s more disturbing is that it looked like my brother Victor was enjoying watching that lap dance. Ha ha.. I think I just vomited in my mouth! ha ha!! Okay.. truth be told, I found it amusing as well!


While opening gifts, someone decided it would be funny to throw the wrapping paper across the room… that’s when the ‘war’ began. We opened gifts for about one hour and the throwing of paper didn’t stop the entire time. By the end of the night, the entire floor was covered. It really was loud and chaotic, but that’s what can be expected when you get the Guerrero’s plus more all in one house. My dad tossed my brother booger a gift, of course booger thought my dad was messing around so booger picks up his unopened gift and acted like he was some wrestler and hit my dad over the head with it.. my dad ran away yelling and laughing at the same time. (I told you we.. I mean they were psycho) My brother then opened that gift and cracked up laughing because it was a tool box! ha ha.. he had hit my dad with a tool box!! I know to some of you, this might sound horrible and outrageous and inhumane.. and guess what.. you are so RIGHT! But, oddly enough.. it was tons of fun! ha ha.. Okay, I just came to my senses and decided that my entire family needs serious counseling. ha ha!!!

After a few years of writing, my dad finally published his Autobiography. He gave all of his kids an autographed copy of his book. This was such a great accomplishment for him. Although I am super proud of my dad, I must say that I am highly offended that he didn’t mention that I was his favorite daughter! ha ha.. Sarai.. you know I only say that to upset you and make you even more jealous of me.. of wait.. sorry, I should keep that to myself because if I say it out loud I’m not being Christlike! ha ha!! He did mention however, that I was un ugly baby that looked like a little dark Indian Kid? Dad??? The he goes to say that I actually looked more like a Mexican comic character named Memin Penguin. Where’s the love man?

We get home wanting to go to sleep but of course couldn’t because we needed to get things together and wrapped for Santa. We finally got to bed about at 2:00 am. I needed LOTS of sleep!!!

MY FAMILY CHRISTMAS
So lucky for me I have the best sleepers in the world at my home. Thanks to the phone ringing, it woke Jessica up at10:00 am… Thanks a lot Cindy! Jessica sits up and says very excited… “I hear something down stairs, I think Santa has keys to the house” ha ha.. I had Jessica go wake Ande up so that we could all go down stairs together. We had Mickey Mouse pancakes. During breakfast Jessica said two super funny things…

  • “How did Santa come in the house if we don’t have a hole fire?”
  • “I think Santa came in through the wall like the cucuy (Boogy man )“ ha ha.. she cracks me up!

Anyhow, we finally got to open gifts about at 11:00 am. Jessica absolutely loved the Hulk Punching Gloves. She got a kick out of punching US, the floor, US, the wall, US, the dog and did I mention US?! When she got to the rocking chair which was one of the many gifts that Ande gave her, Jessica says, “Hey, it’s like the one hiding in your closet” ha ha.. I guess Ande didn’t do such a great job at hiding gifts. We had a great Christmas.

CHRISTMAS LUNCH @ THE CARDENS
For lunch Ande, Jessica and I went to the Cardens. Ken & Joyce are the most wonderful, the most humble, the most loving and giving people you will ever meet. While we were there we just chit chatted. It’s always fun to be around the Carden Clan. Here we continued to have some yummy food.. yup, you guessed it, more ham and turkey! We stayed here for about 3 hours, I would have stayed longer but Ande for some reason needed to go home and make herself look pretty. It’s always a fun experience to be around the Cardens. I met Misty many years ago and we became good friends when Ande was two years old (13 years ago). Through Misty I met Sharon who is now my sister in law.. Who would have thought, that little quiet girl would end up my now still quiet sister in law. But we all know, it’s those quiet ones you have to worry about! ha. Thanks Cardens for a great time and for allowing my girls and I to always crash your fiesta… but at least this time I was actually invited and didn’t just show up like other times.. hey, if you’ve known me this long.. I might as well be family!!!

CHRISTMAS @ THE COLES
On Christmas day we went to my Out-Laws.. Oh gosh, did I say that out loud.. I mean, my In-Laws.  We had an amzing dinner. Even Miss Picky Eater, Ande liked the food. You would think that after all the ham I have eaten this week I would be sick of it by now, but we had some super yummy ham, which I actually think it was the best ham I’ve had. It really was dang good ham. For desert we had some scrumtuous Chocolate Eclairs. We got to open more gifts while we were there. I actually got something from my Christmas list… Lucky for me, Doug & Terry read my blog and read my Christmas list!! They gave me my very first Nativity Set. YAY!!! I was super excited. THANK YOU!!!!! We had a great time with My family, my outlaws.. dang, I said it again, John, Sharon and their boys. Of course the night ended on a high note with Caleb singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  It was pretty awesome that he knew the words. Although at times it was very amusing to watch him sing it, it was also uplifting. Thank you Caleb for a wonderful presentation!

Hope you all had a super duper Christmas and a little more calmer than mine!! Happy New Year!!!