friends are the greatest

Wow. I am so amazed. And humbled. And almost a little bit ashamed.

This evening I was sitting around in my room, reading random articles on the Harry Potter Lexicon (since I'm finished with my first assignment, I've decided to take some down time now), when my phone rang.

It was Sarah Hockley, one of 'the girls' -- meaning, one of the other on-campus students in Lancaster Ward. "We're at your door, and we have something for you," she informed me.

I made a brief attempt to clean up my room a little (it's been getting really terrible lately!), and then went down the corridor to open the flat door for them. Sarah and JoAnna stood there (Denise already went home, earlier today), and there they stood with a large, green-wrapping-papered Christmas present and a home-made stocking for me, along with a medium-ish brown envelope with my name written on it in red and green markers.

Apparently they did all of this on Sunday night, without telling me anything about it. They almost let it slip several times during Family Home Evening on Monday, they said -- especially with all that sugar in them, from eating brownies and pumpkin cookies and chocolate chip cookies at JoAnna's while making up my packages, repeated the next night as we baked holiday cookies for our activity.

They asked about my paper, and Sarah offered to let me use her printer if I was still having trouble with the labs the next morning. We chatted for a few minutes, and they said they couldn't stay because they had to go someplace. Just as they were leaving, I looked a little more closely at the stocking they had decorated for me and noticed that it had a potato-angel on top of the tree, singing at the top of its lungs (which I assume is a reference to fact that I like to sing, as they all know well). When they had left, I examined the stocking a little more closely and found that they had wrapped up several little presents to stuff inside it, along with the usual candy.

Earlier today, I had stopped by Denise's room to borrow her 3-foot Christmas tree. She had offered, even before it got here, to let me use it during the holidays, to lend some holiday cheer to my room. I had been intending all day to decorate it with the ornaments and tinsel she handed over with it, but I hadn't gotten to it yet -- maybe I just wasn't feeling the Christmas spirit yet.

But now, I will go decorate it right away and turn on the lights, so that I can put my stocking and other presents under it (including those that have arrived already from my sister). Good friends really are a wonderful thing to have.