Our Christmas Letter

If we were one of those couples that sent out a Christmas letter to everyone we know, this is what this years would say. I will preface this with a reminder that we are NOT, I repeat: NOT one of those couples who send out a Christmas letter. For one thing, I'm not paying for stamps to update people on our lives. If you deserve/want to know, you'll call me and we'll talk because we're close personal friends. But the most important reason why we don't send out a Christmas letter is because we're not fucking annoying. I'm sorry, I know I don't usually blog that kind of language, but I felt it was necessary in this instance to properly convey my intense distaste for Christmas letters. Now don't get me wrong: I LOVE reading other people's Christmas letters. They're usually either super boring or super hilarious. The best of these is when they're not intentionally hilarious. A few years ago, a distant relative of ours sent out the most depressing Christmas letter I've ever seen. It included events in the year such as multiple family member deaths, the onset of blindness due to an illness, and the loss of a job. Um... maybe this was a good year to skip the Christmas letter. Because I just read it and was forced to kill myself because of the deep depression that came over me. Also, you're blind and unemployed, maybe save the money you spent on stamps to pay for dinner. Just sayin'... Ok, so here's our hypothetical Christmas letter. And I'm only doing this because 2010 has been such a cool year:

Well folks, 2010 has been a big year full of major changes for us!
The beginning of the year had us in Arizona, both working full time and savings our pennies for what we knew would be a lot of changes in the coming year. Dane was living in Tempe and working as an emergency room scribe at a couple different Valley hospitals. I was living with my parents in Paradise Valley and working as an assistant manager at Massage Envy while also nannying for a fantastic family who I now miss immensely!
April brought my birthday and not a whole lot else. Go 23!
May brought the first big change for us: Dane proposed! He put a lot of time and effort into planning a romantic evening for us and both impressed and surprised me. I have yet to come up with an abridged version of the proposal story but the general overview includes Trader Vic's for dinner, a gorgeous room at the Hotel Valley Ho, and a big box of every single tangible piece of our four year relationship. The ring is absolutely gorgeous and I revel in getting compliments on it quite regularly. (Many of these may be due to the fact that I unnecessarily flash it as much as possible. Any movement that CAN be done with my hand palm-down, IS done with my hand palm-down. I can't help it, my ring is gorgeous and I'm a slut for showing it off).
July brought our 4th date-i-versary (what I call our anniversary b/c we're not married so it's not really an anniversary) and our biggest change yet: we moved to Omaha, NE! (And Dane turned 23!)
August brought the start of medical school for Dane and he's been doing sensationally! His grades are very impressive and he's doing very well with the heavy work load. I am honestly so impressed with his work ethic. I always knew he was a good student, but his dedication to this is like he was born to be a med student.
We don't get to spend a whole lot of time together because his evenings and weekends are usually filled with studying, but we have dinner together most nights and sometimes get the chance to watch a football game together on the weekends.
September brought the start of my job! I hadn't looked much before we moved, so I feel especially blessed that I was only unemployed for a month! I spend my days at work and am enjoying learning more about the banking industry, but mostly I love having a place to get up and go to every day. (And yes, I'm specifically NOT mentioning where I work, because I would like to remain employed. Methinks some of the big wigs might not love my pointless blog mentioning their Fortune 500 company.) I spend my nights making dinners, watching tv, and drinking pinot noir. My partners in crime are Eddie, our dog and Heidi, our cat (but they don't get any wine, they're underage). My weekends are filled with either more work or laundry, cleaning, and errand running. Luckily work is right by a Target and a grocery store, so I can run mandatory errands on my lunch break or on my way home. My mom came to visit at the end of September and it was very much needed for me. It was nice to have a familiar face around Omaha and a buddy to go shopping with :)
October was full of training for me and lots of school work for Dane. I went to Oregon the first weekend of the month for my gram's birthday. It was great to see my extended family and get a weekend away from the stresses of work here in Omaha. The trip was super fun but too short! Dane and I didn't do anything for Halloween because he had a test the following day, so we celebrated by having an awkward dinner of latkes.
November brought Dane's first trip home since the move and he was very excited! He had a great few days home and I had a great few days with the house to myself. Don't get me wrong, I love Daneish, but I also love my alone time. Eddie and I went down to Kansas City for Thanksgiving to spend it with my MOH (for those of you not up on wedding abbreviations, that's Maid of Honor) Sam and her parents. It was a quick 24 hour trip so I could get back for work on Friday, but we both had a blast. Eddie loved getting attention from new people and I loved getting to be around my Midwestern family again. The downer to this trip was the speeding ticket I got in Iowa on the drive home. Yes, I got a speeding ticket ON Thanksgiving. Thanks to this, I will now NEVER spend money in Iowa. Congratulations Iowa! I have a shopping problem and you just screwed yourself out of it. Enjoy the speeding fine.
December has been good to us thus far. The Christmas spirit has hit me hard this year so I'm doing everything I can to spread Christmas cheer. I've roped some coworkers into adopting a senior citizen in need and am looking forward to delivering gifts to her! Another awesome perk of Christmastime is that my salon supports the Omaha Food Bank, so my canned food donation got me a free paraffin dip for my hands today! Sweet! I got rid of some food that we were probably never going to eat AND got to feel extra pampered! Christmas is absolutely my favorite time of year, so I've decorated our apartment with lots of twinkle lights and am probably annoying Daneish with my holiday mugs and tree-scented candles. I'm actually hoping for a big snow so I can have a white Christmas. (Well, Christmas week b/c I'll be in AZ on Christmas day). Dane is excitedly getting through the next couple of weeks of school before he gets to go home to AZ. I don't get to go home for very long, but my few days there will be great! We'll be taking our engagement pictures, having our food and cake tastings for the reception, and best of all: MY FIRST WEDDING DRESS FITTING!! I am beyond excited to see my dress and get to play with my shoes, etc. We're also going to make this the first Christmas we actually spend together. We usually don't cross paths on Christmas until nighttime, but we're going to try to combine things a little more this year, mostly because we're engaged and it's weird if we don't. It's just tough because we both love our own family celebrations and are not great at being flexible to fit in other events. Also, our families both live in the Valley, so we have a lot of stops to make for the holidays. But we're going to work on it because next year we'll be married and then it'll be REALLY weird if we don't spend Christmas together. We'll be back in Omaha for the New Year but haven't yet figured out how we'll celebrate. Probably our usual: sweats on the couch with pizza, watch the ball drop on tv, then bedtime. New Years Eve isn't really our holiday, but maybe we'll be more exciting this year. We'll see!
2010 has been a great year for us and I'm sure 2011 will be even better. We with you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Feel free to come visit us any time you'd like! If you can handle the cold and snow, we'd love to have you!