happiness and cheer

I'll write an extended, more detailed blog later about all the things I'm grateful for, but since Christmasing is always exhausting, I'll sum up:

I'm grateful for my family and for how cool they are. I'm grateful for my sister and that we've liked each other since we were little babies cooing "Go in nursery and eat cookies" and "I'll help you, Bizzy" at each other. I'm grateful for the sense of humor our extended family possesses and that it has trickled down the generations. I'm grateful for my mom's painfully good looks, and my dad running down the driveway behind my training-wheel-less bike, and their delightfully dated, oversized glasses.

I'm grateful for books about supremely nerdy things like punctuation and Shakespeare and Mary Poppins, and people in my life who know me well enough to actually buy them for me.

I'm grateful for good taste in jewelry. Any future husband of mine has a lot to live up to, given the standard my dad has set.

I'm grateful for dear, dear friends who send me texts, emails, IMs, and facebook messages, wishing me a merry Christmas, telling me they miss me, and informing me how grateful they are for me in their lives on this day. I'm grateful for singular "friend language" and funny poetry and extreme obsession/dissection of the excrusiating minutia of our lives. I'm unspeakably grateful for the support and encouragement I receive practically on a daily basis, though it's probably annoying and somewhat unfounded.

I'm grateful for Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.

I'm grateful for history and for places far away from here, where I aspire to belong.

I'm grateful for Jelly Bean, Bonny, and Sprout.

I'm grateful that I am no longer stuck in awkward 6-10th grade physicality, though I do mourn the passing of my golden "cute years" (apparently I peaked at age-4, mullet and all).

I'm so grateful for Pop Apricot colored glittery nail polish, since I haven't been able to paint my nails ALL SEMESTER!

I'm grateful for sweet, cute boys who probably don't even know it when they're being sweet and cute, and who keep my spirits up, just by their cuteness.

I'm grateful for my BYU experience, and also grateful that it's quickly coming to a close. Also terrified, but mostly grateful. I'm grateful for the potential and probability of eventually moving on in a big way. I'm so grateful for my major. I'm grateful for the British Renaissance and Restoration, for Queen Elizabeth I (and II, for that matter), for Westminster Abbey, for the early-modernist and modernist periods, for the Church of England, for Jacobean and Restoration drama, for creative non-fiction and essays, and GRAMMAR (because, contrary to the opinions of some, I do know how to speak/write).

I'm grateful I was able to retrieve every document, every picture, and every song I've ever downloaded when my computer was pronounced dead beyond repair last week. I'm grateful for a shiny new external hard drive.

I'm grateful for four years worth of A Christmas Carol and all the many people involved in it each year. I'm grateful to have come into a very successful year with it, and to go out on the same note. I'm grateful for beautiful dresses and another excuse to wear a corset. I'm grateful for such good friends, old and new, and to share the experience with them. I'm grateful for a nice, supportive Jeremy to play my husband, even though we had our share of silly misunderstandings and fake real marital problems. I'm grateful to have shared the stage with both my mom and my sister again.

I'm grateful for the 1988 church movie Luke II that is less than 5 minutes long, that we watch on Christmas Eve every year. I'm grateful for the spirit it captures with Joseph's warm eyes and the king's trembling lip and the donkey drooling and the sheep bleeting, and especially the tiny little voice at the end singing, "Let Earth receive her King."

I am so grateful Earth has receiceved her King, and will receive Him again someday. He is the reason I can be grateful for anything else in my life. I'm overwhelmed by His love and steady hand, even when I can't see Him guiding me. I love Him.