(deep breath)
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72/8
How you could have celebrated: Gone to a fancypants party full of rich, skinny people eating olives. Pretended to be at one of Julie Cooper's parties at the O.C. Spent the first 60 seconds of this brand new 365 page notebook trying not to choke while you eat grapes, drink cider, kiss your family and get hugged to death, simlutaneousy. Spent the next 59 minutes dancing with your brother and belting out Marc Anthony.
or:
Go to Sofia Flynn's house (auuggghlakdjsfldksj), where you spend 4 hours dancing and the rest of the time plotting some way to get your cousin and your friend's brother to fall in love during La Macarena so that Paulina and Jess can be actual sisters and then it wouldn't be so lame to pretend that they're the Olsen Twins (dibs on Ashley).
There's something else, too.
It's tacky and unattractive.
Paulina's Christmas 08 wasn't Christmas until about 14 hours ago. The Christmas part of it, I mean. And it's the kind of thing that you know won't happen to you because it'll happen to everyone else, or it seems to when you hear them get up on testimony sunday and it's always the same same same same thing.
...But something this year just didn't feel right. The house was all decorated, no one forgot to get or give a present. All of the classics were playing nonstop on the radio, the snow outside was beautiful. It looked like Christmas, but (look down, grab Kleenex) ... but it just didn't feel like Christmas. We weren't remembering what this holiday was about. There wasn't any spirit in any of us. (continue continue)
You hear it every year. If it's not at church, it's at a terrible Tim Allen movie or some episode on tv or really cheesy poems that don't stick to their meter.
You get it though, right?
(here's the kicker)
My dad got us three front row tickets to watch the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis put on The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
and I hate
how much
I loved it.
Because it's Naaaaaarnia, because it's the only thing BJ and Ricky Benson have in common, because the lion=jesus omgz. Augh.
But there you go. My Christmas happened at 11 a.m. on December 31, 2008, the 365th day of the year. I'd rather admit that I had it for 2 hours at a cheesy musical and feel a little bit like a canned Hallmark card than lie about it to myself when people ask me how my Christmas was this year.
Let's practice.
Paulina, how was your Christmas this year?
It was beautiful. It made me want to cry, clap, laugh and sing. It melted a rainbow into my eyes (I'm stealing) so that everything I saw would be beautiful, just for a while. It reminded me of what it means to have faith and what it means to believe in the most perfect, extraordinary kind of love. It was the best way possible to end the year.
