Elder Shaeffer -- Marty

Now that we're getting so close to him coming home, I feel like I can finally listen to my heart and feel my emotions about him being gone.

I miss this smile... this one right here... SO. MUCH.

Today everyone went skiing. I stayed home and wrapped presents, took a walk, tidied the house, made sure it smelled good, did the laundry and organized the bedrooms to ready them for guests.

Meanwhile my sisters were texting. Bekah and Rachel were commiserating that they were so tired.

I discovered that my desire to be home on Christmas Eve while my family was out skiing was probably a form of PTSD.

We're finally at a stage that I'm not exhausted leading up to Christmas. 

And I still need a few more years of reveling in that "not exhausted" feeling before I move on to "actively going out and making a day of it."

I had a perfect day. And so did everyone else who were up skiing.

Kershaw is sitting in my spot.

5:30 we gathered to talk to Marty. I'm so excited to be on the month countdown.

For Christmas they were going out shopping and Dan said they could use the credit card to get a nice meal. (Marty said he'd told his companion they would probably get to go out because he thought his Dad would offer up a nice meal on the card. Ha!)

Marty is happy. He has a testimony. He's loved being a missionary. He said it's been the hardest thing ever and a year ago he thought he couldn't recommend a mission to Chris. But since that time he's grown to know it was absolutely the best thing. That area that was his hardest, is also the area he's most excited to return to and take us when we visit Japan. He told us he'd give us all the details when he gets home.

He said he's not trunky. But he is looking forward to finishing and coming home. He said he's excited to work hard for the next month and enjoy his time in Japan and as a missionary. 

But he won't be sad when it's over.

His plan is to get home about 1:30 p.m. He thought it's generally about 5:00 when the Stake President has time to release the missionaries. And then he wants two solid hours to listen to his music. He has a playlist of about 17 songs he can't wait to listen to. I thought it was interesting his plan was to wait until he's officially released. In my head once you're home, you're done. 

I think it would be easy to say, "I've served. What's a few more hours. It's no big deal to listen to my music now. It's just music after all. It's close enough."

But that being said, what's a few more hours to say you were obedient to the very end.

I'm proud of his attitude.

We met Grandma and Dimitrios (Marge was with us too) at Asian Star for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It was crowded, but comfortable and delicious. 

We came home and opened a Christmas Eve gift -- "What Do You Meme?" 

Then watched "Christmas Vacation" for our Christmas Eve movie.

By midnight, everyone went up to bed and Dad and I wrapped a few more presents, filled the stockings and then we went to bed.

I would like to say that "the children were nestled all snug in their beds," but in reality we found out the next day that Chris had snuck out at 2:00 a.m. to get burritos with his friends, got stopped by the cops (who called back-up) when it looked like he was casing a neighborhood ("get out of the car with your hands up"), then made friends with the cop and then were sent on their merry way when his friend came out of the house and collaborated the burrito story.

I found this out from Courtney who saw it on his Snapchat the next day. 

He said since Courtney told me he had to now block her from following him. But I don't think he will. He was too excited to tell Dan the cop story so had already confessed earlier.