I've always loved Christmas. It's not my favorite holiday (that honor goes to Halloween) but there's just something about Christmas time. For me, Christmas reminds me of how much my family and I laugh together. We've had several different Christmas traditions over the years. They ranged from putting up more decorations on Christmas eve (my mother was never good at going for simplistic decorations), filming a homemade Christmas show with my sister Skylar and I as the hosts (one particular show contained a segment with Skylar hocking Little Debbie snack cakes and saying she was Betty Crocker's cousin, Betty Shocker), and now our semi new tradition of snack foods, wine, and a game to play.
I love my family and I enjoy being able to have that time with them. I love being able to laugh at the silly things they do and to have stories to talk about for weeks afterwards.
Christmas time is also special to me because it was around that time when Paul and I discovered that we were more serious about each other than we realized. We were shopping for presents for his family about a month and a half into us dating and on a hunt to find one particular gift, it led us to Best Buy. As we're roaming the store, we came across the section where they have model kitchens set up. I mentioned that I wasn't a fan of a gas stove and Paul insisted that having a gas stove was the best and we had to have one. I told him that he could have the gas stove if I could have a center island in the kitchen. He said that'd be fine if he got to have hardwood floors. I said no because they were cold and he said we'd have carpet in the bedrooms. At no point during our dialogue were we not serious. It should have been a hypothetical conversation but we were discussing it as if we had to have plans for the house drawn the next day. It was one of the first moments where we both realized that we couldn't see our future without the other one in it.
Paul loves Christmas and part of that is because Paul loves surprises. He loves to be surprised and he loves to give them as well. Paul is also very attentive so his gifts are always something that I've mentioned that I wanted. I've only told Paul what I wanted flat out only once. He normally just pays attention to things that I take to and things that I can't stop talking about. On our first Christmas together, he got me an Iphone. He had one and I'd spent the better part of a month fiddling with it every time I could get my hands on it and had told him not to get me one. I thought it was way too much for him to be getting it for me and we had just started dating. He saw right through my protests and got it for me anyway. He hid it in a huge box and after digging through packing peanuts, he finally emptied it out so that I could see the card taped to the bottom of the box. Apple doesn't let you take the actual phones so instead, it was a gift card with the exact amount of the Iphone cost on it. I haven't been able to live down my reaction to this day. Paul says I'm the worst gift receiver ever.
Now in my defense, it definitely wasn't that I didn't like it, I just never really thought he'd ACTUALLY do it. I was used to men never following through and never paying enough attention to me to know what I really wanted. To me, the fact that he saw through me telling him not to get me one, shocked me. I didn't know what to think and it scared me because at that point I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was pretty perfect in my eyes and I just kept thinking there had to be a catch. I've since moved past all my insecurities about the other shoe but at the time, they were pretty prevalent in my mind.
So this year, I knew that whatever he got me, I had to make sure he knew that I really appreciated it. He of course wouldn't drop any hints about what it was so I was prepared to make a big commotion no matter what. Christmas came and as usual, we went back to his mother's house where we open our gifts to each other. I had gotten him a collage of professional pictures taken of me and Abby. Paul loved it and thought that it'd be a nice edition to his office, whenever he bought a house with one. And after getting satellite radio from Paul (which I hadn't expected at all), he hands me a card and a box. Inside of the card was a written note, telling me that he hoped all my dreams came true for Christmas. Folded inside of the note was a printed out picture of the Allegro hotel in Chicago, IL. At the top it said "Reservations for 12/31/09" and I thought, "Oh ok, we have plans for New Year's!" Up until that point, I didn't think we did. After setting the card aside, I opened the box. It took all of 2 seconds for me to let out the biggest scream. At that point, I wasn't even thinking about reacting appropriately because it came out naturally. Inside of the box were tickets to see In The Heights on New Year's Eve at the Cadillac Palace.
Now let me just say that I have been obsessed with In The Heights ever since I discovered it. The Christmas before, I had begged Paul to burn a copy of the soundtrack for me and listened to it non-stop for the better part of a year. I had stopped talking about the musical because I realized not everyone fell in love with it instantly like I did. But to know that Paul knew me well enough to know that it was the most perfect gift I could ever get, well I'm pretty sure I fell in love with him all over again that night. It was absolutely perfect and I just couldn't help but wonder what I'd done to deserve such a beautiful, kind, caring, and sweet man. Honestly, I still don't think I know but I plan to hold on as tight as I can.
So for New Year's we spent a night in Chicago and it went by fast but it was amazing at the same time. I love In The Heights even more than I did before and Paul got to see just why I was so fascinated in the first place.
After New Year's, I came with Paul to Dallas, Texas for a little over three weeks where he was finishing up his training. I could have gone back to Illinois but the idea of me being at the house by myself for that long didn't sit well with either of us, especially since we'd just finished being separated for 3 months. So we packed up ourselves and Abby and off to Dallas we went.
Dallas was nice but after a few days of being in the room all day, every day, cabin fever set in and I felt like a crazy woman. I'm sure Paul thought I'd lost it when I'd beg and plead to go do something. But we got through it and we went back to Illinois to begin our "permanent" life in the Midwest.
So now that this post has gone on way too long, I'll end it here and just say that life in the Midwest wasn't what we'd thought it'd be but that's another entry at another time.
