Christmas with the Rupps

so last night my family and i went to go see Christmas with the Cranks. it was a good movie, not as funny as i was expecting, but it had a good message. and yes, a couple of tears did fall during the course of the ending, but i hid them well, knowing that i would never live it down if my family found out. :) afterwards we went to eat at lonestar which was yummy. eating with my family is always an experience b/c we share all of our food. almost before it gets placed in front of us, we start giving different parts of our entree to each other to try. i decided that it is a new criteria for my next significant other - he must be ok with the idea of sharing food... on the way home we got to hear about the kid in mom's class that was standing on top of the toilet b/c he didn't want anyone to know he was in there and wanted his privacy and also about the mysterious boy that pees in the corner of the bathroom- i might become a teacher just for the good stories... once we got home and i wrapped gifts and then we all curled up to watch The Alamo, in which alisha was so confused she just decided to go to bed and i, true to habit, fell asleep. so i really don't know what happened, just that i am supposed to remember the alamo.

so i woke up this morning, Christmas morning, to find my whole family awake and waiting on me. i told them they should have woke me up, but they were jus too nice for that. my bro had just left anyway to take some roses to Kim, his kind of girlfriend- i guess they're taking a break right now. at least that's what i interpreted the grunts to mean when i asked about it. i thought that it was sweet. i mean what girl wouldn't like roses delivered to them on christmas day? when he got back we opened stockings and that was a good time. i love stockings, and mine had a few suprises in it, so that was fun. i don't remember all that happened, but there was a lot of laughter and silliness- pry things that you just had to be there and have a Rupp sense of humor :) i love my family! anyway we were getting ready to move to the room with the christmas tree in it to open gifts when my bro informed us that we had to wait b/c he had to go "wrap" his presents. wrapping consisted of throwing gifts in a bag and adding some wadded tissue paper.

after some confusion, we finally got all the gifts distibuted to the right ppl. mom numbers us kid's gifts b/c for some reason she thinks that if she puts our names on them we'll try to figure out what they are. personally i like not knowing, but i guess she doesn't trust us. the 2 looked like an N and with my dad's name being Neil he had a lot of gifts and alisha didn't have any... finally mom came in and organized the situation. we started with the oldest, her and worked our way down. there was more silliness and jokes as we opened and oohed and ahhed at our gifts. jeremy loved the fleece blanket that alisha and i made for him. mom liked the whole "relaxation" theme of all her gifts. alisha was suprised by her earrings and my favorite gift was probably my nike wind jacket, along with underarmour head band. i look pretty good if i do say so myself. i might have to be more careful running around marion! the "house" also got gifts (aka family gifts). we got an expresso maker, which turns out not to be what we expected so that will be returned, but the other gift is a classic- forest gump VHS... my brother can do an amazing forest gump impression, so it was about time we got the movie. really, it is so funny when he does it, especially the shrimp part... anyway, this being my last christmas as a teenager, it was a great one. i don't know why, but this year just being with family and laughing together felt so good and i was so blessed by that. we get along so well! God is sooooooo good! and my brother just cracks me up! he's 16 and i've really gotten to appreciate his sense of humor. my whole family is a bit strange, but I love them for that! and of course that makes it easier for me to fit in ;)

i promise i'm about done rambling....but dad and i always run on christmas day after we open gifts. we've run through huge snow drifts and yucky conditions, but i don't think we've ever ran when it was this cold, but none the less it's tradition and we had to go. so we bundled up and headed out into the subzero weather. dad tried to push me in a snow drift, but i prevailed and hit him with a snow ball. i do have to admit, even with the new windbreaker and underarmour, it was quite cold. but memories were made and that's what counts. i will always run with my dad on christmas day- it's just a given... we only went four miles and when we came back i took a warm shower and put on my comfy fleece pants and sweatshirt. mom made pancakes and we just got done eating a late lunch and alisha and i did the dishes, not w/o a little water fight though. now i sit here, tummy full, heart warm and eyes drooping. the rest of the day will be filled with watching movies, playing games and reading... Merry CHRISTmas!