Christmas 2008 was about as exciting as Thanksgiving 2008... aka it was depressing.

Just a few days before Christmas Clark left Walgreens. There had been some mix-ups about his scheduling over the holidays. While we knew he had to work Christmas, he had requested off before and after to visit family. Walgreens wasn't so obliging, so Clark just left.

I wasn't very happy with him. He had been there for almost a year. If he had stuck it out just another month we would have qualified for so much more. But Clark didn't want it. So, I supported him.

As Christmas was only a couple days away, I got super upset. I realized we could have been in Germany spending Christmas with my parents and little sister, rather than at home opening presents and doing dinner by our lonesomes. While we looked into changing our tickets, we clearly couldn't afford it.

So we didn't tell our families. We didn't want my parents to get upset that we were missing Christmas, and we didn't want pressure from Clark's family to drive to Fayetteville to do Christmas with them. Instead we decided to do Christmas by ourselves.

Well, us and Coconut, of course.

The food turned out well (if I do say so myself), although I can't honestly remember what I made. We didn't do much. We hung out, we got ready, we opened presents, we cuddled on the couch. We just enjoyed being with each other, rather than putting pressure on the fact that it was our first (and thus far only) Christmas by ourselves.

There was a point in the day I remember getting upset. After all, this was the first Christmas either of us had spent without being around any "extended" family. We were still young and figuring out what it mean to be a family of our very own. It was Clark who reminded me that we came first, the rest of the family came second. Usually it was me reminding him, and I was so thankful that he stepped up to the plate on Christmas.

I like to think that we truly made the holiday about the reason for the season, rather than the "stuff". We tried to focus on remembering that the day wasn't about presents or food, but about the birth of Jesus Christ.