Christmas Eve

 Oh hi Jacob,

I’m not going to lie, I miss you. Everything is more fun when you’re around. Especially roasting mom’s family. But I hope we can speak tomorrow, I hope you had a fun mission party, I hope you are tolerating your comp well enough, and I hope you were able to baptize Jose this week and that you had the help you needed.

I thought this week was going to be easy, but I turned out to be a lot more work than I figured. I worked a little more work stuff on Thursday, and mom and I ran a bunch of Christmas errands. For Christmas mom asked to hire someone to deep clean our bathroom. I told her I’d do it. After all, I’m Mexican, I can do backbreaking manual work, how hard can it be? I should have hired someone, thrown them a blank check, it kinda sucked because it took me my usual three times longer than anticipated. Some things you boys should be aware of when you marry a pretty girl. Their hair gets EVERYWHERE, their hair products get everywhere, the makeup gets everywhere. And it’s all designed to have an all day hold, so it sticks to everything. I actually thought our vanity had a pinkish hue, nope, makeup. We had red soap or shampoo stains everywhere. And soap scum is so hard to clean. I pulled out some power tools for the job, a steam cleaner, an 18 volt ryobi power brush, industrial hard water and soap scum remover, bleach cleaner, and my old standby, Comet scrubbing cleanser. After two days and about six hours total, I got it cleaned, and it looks good. But I’m pooped, and I considered barring mom from using it. But, I use it too and your sweet mom was appreciative.

Tonight was grandma’s Christmas Eve party. Brook, Mark’s wife, is my hero. She made the little Heumann kids clean up after themselves. Uncle David, the conquering hero was there. I didn’t see him move positions on the couch once. He was wearing gym shorts, let that sink in. Grandma had sandwich fixins, and all kinds of goodies. I think everyone was there, all the couches, upstairs and down were full, the floor was full too. Everyone seemed happy and getting along. Uncle Tim went on what seemed like a 40 minute rant on why they need to expand the collection football playoffs. Mom was sitting right across from me so I literally had to bite my tongue to keep from asking him how deep the brackets would have to be to include a team that lost to UAB. Or if byu were to get in regularly would the loose in the first round every-single-time. But your sweet mom communities with her eyes, especially when her gaze is boring through the back of my skull. So I just nodded and agreed. Grandpa was proud of his veteran hats. He looked like McArthur after reclaiming the Philippines wearing that hat. But all the noise and talking gave me a pretty bad headache. That’s partially why I’m still up.

We stopped by the pretty lit tree in Draper on the way home. Then we did the Christmas story. You’ll be glad to know that argeorqui reprised his role as baby Jesus so his year is made. We then watched the church version on you tube. One of the guys from my staff at Neways was in it. He grows his hair and beard like John the Baptist in hopes of making it into one of those movies. He played a shepherd. It was kinda weird seeing him. We then watched Elf and a Christmas Story. Then I finished wrapping gifts. 

Joey is sleeping in your bed tonight. When I checked in on him I missed you. I haven’t poked my head in there since you left. I’m guessing he’ll get us up early, I’m glad he will. I’m going to miss little kids at Christmas so as long as he indulges us we’re going to let him.

Tomorrow we’re going to grandmas for breakfast and aunt Patti’s for lunch. It will be fun. I hope we can talk tomorrow. Let us know about when and we’ll plan around it.

I love you kid. I don’t know what your day will be like tomorrow. Just know that you are bringing your brothers and sisters to the savior, and that all of your efforts are recognized.

Pops