Yes, I am one of the most inconsistent bloggers ever. I own it.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

OK, I am a bit late, I admit.  But better late than never!
Christmas away from home was a bit crazy, but also (a bit unexpectedly) fun.  First off, the build up to Christmas wasn't really there- the week prior we had a bunch of exams in school, and the perfectionist inside me that I never can seem to completely shake off had me focusing on those more than was really necessary.  However, lunchtime on the day before break resulted in a weird kind of "Christmas rave" type thing in the music room that was highly enjoyable and made me partially lose my voice.  At the house, our water situation was a bit shaky all week.  First the pipes froze, so we only had water in the kitchen... On Christmas Day one of the pipes in the attic actually burst, and a couple days later all of Tramore's water had to be cut off for a few hours to fix a leak in the main line or something.  It's been interesting, and actually kind of fun.  Now our water is almost completely back to normal, but I feel like we're all still being very careful in case something else should go wrong.
Other than that, there were no real big problems- though personally I had a scare or two with the tree (the cat, Lizzie, seems to develop an affinity for climbing Christmas trees when cooped up too long).
Christmas Day itself was unexpectedly enjoyable.  I say "unexpectedly" because, well, being away from home for Christmas for the first time, I was kind of preparing myself for a bit of a rough day.  The exact opposite happened- I got up that morning and went to church (which was filled with an awesome Christmas Day atmosphere of joy and laughter), opened my first package that afternoon, and then late afternoon/evening we had a big Christmas dinner with some family friends and opened presents.  The generosity of my host family and the grace of the Lord overwhelmed me the entire day.

So now, Christmas is over until 2011.  It is New Year's Eve.  I am thirteen days away from being a legal adult.  I am 27 days away from going home.  I have been so blessed with so many crazy experiences this entire last year, especially these last few months in Ireland.  Just so that this post isn't too crazy long, I'm going to put all my cheesy memories from 2010 in a different one.
So, I hope all of your holidays were lovely, and I hope you have a fantastic New Year!  I'll be seeing all of you Americans soon...