Remembering My First Christmas Married

Have you all had a good holiday season ?  I hope so!  I’m posting this a little late, as I started writing it Christmas Eve, but fell asleep.  A peek into my holiday this year though..

It’s after midnight on Christmas eve and I am about to go to bed. I have been sitting here in the cozy garden room with the candles glowing, the colored lights lit up on Matt’s bachelorhood dollar store tree, the nostalgic toys and ornaments I’ve saved my entire life (that are from Christmases past when I was a child), a cup of peppermint tea and 2 kitties on my lap.  I just finished watching one of my favorite holiday movies, “White Christmas”, with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney.

I had a wonderful Christmas eve.  Matt and I exchanged gifts with my parents and brother down at their house, and then I came home and my brother Dan and I went for a walk to look at Christmas lights.  We did see some pretty lights.  Then we came home and spontaneously decided to make a large snowman in the front yard.  Now I am sitting here anticipating Christmas morning as I’ve done since I was a child, waiting for “Santa” to come.  Grant it , it was more exciting and magical then than it is now, but I still get that Christmas Eve excitement!

 

 

I am reminiscing about our first Christmas married and living together, a year ago today.  I was especially anticipating Christmas morning that year, because it would be my first year not waking up with my family to stuffed stockings and a large Christmas breakfast made by Mom.  A tradition I was used to for over 30 years!  Matt grew up Jehovah’s Witness, so he wasn’t used to stockings and all that.  I stuffed his stocking every year we were dating so he could experience what I always had, but he had never stuffed one for me before, since Mom always did.  The stocking torch had been passed to him and I was wondering if he would forget and I would wake up to an empty sock Christmas morning.  He didn’t.

It was a great Christmas.  A sweet Christmas with our new puppy Toast part of the celebration too.  It was time to start new traditions. While the stocking torch had been passed to Matt, the Christmas breakfast torch had been passed to me.  I made us a big breakfast of hash browns, eggs, and bacon with a breakfast cookie and tea.  And then it was time to open presents.  I had no clue what Matt would get me, other than I suspected a printer since I needed one.

I did get a new printer, but the rest totally surprised me.  He bought me a really good book and a stylish outfit.  The man has always had good style.  I have always thought it was cute when he went shopping alone to all the girly stores to pick out outfits for me.  Especially since he does not like doing girly things whatsoever.  This particular Christmas he picked out an ivory poncho sweater and a pair of Kenneth Cole black Stiletto boots. Just when I thought I had opened all my gifts , he tells me to close my eyes as he brings something up from the basement.  It was a gorgeous Anne Klein red wool peacoat.  The long, dressy, double breasted kind.  It fits me perfectly and I love it.

 

But back to those boots!  I get a big grin on my face thinking about those boots (and also my stocking).  I loved the boots in theory, but I can’t walk in them to save my life.  These are some fierce looking boots; Like what you’d see a model wearing!  However, I am too unsteady or clumsy or something for 4 inch stiletto boots where I have to walk on the ball of my foot. Especially in the Winter in Michigan with all the ice and snow.  It’s an accident waiting to happen.  Also, they are not at all comfortable.

Despite the fact I that I just might break my neck wearing them and had to tiptoe slowly down the sidewalk at a granny pace so I didn’t slip and fall, I wore them to the family Christmas party later that night.

I may have barely made it up the walk in one piece (feeling silly all the way), but darn it all I arrived in that pair of hot boots for my husband, without letting on how painful and unsafe they felt to walk in hehe.  Because sometimes that is what love does. Love and the spirit of Christmas 🙂 .  Maybe one day I will actually be able to gracefully and safely walk in these boots, but even if not, they are in my closet and I am not getting rid of them.  They remind me of my first Christmas married after all (and they ARE gorgeous!).

 

And then there was my stocking.  He says right up front, “I suck at stockings”.  I was like, but you did it! That is all that matters.  He didn’t know what to do about a stocking that first year , since he had never stuffed one before, and didn’t grow up with the stocking tradition.  Only the toe of my stocking was stuffed, and it is really funny and endearing when I look back on what I got.  I have to give him credit for trying to pick out makeup for me! That was brave territory.  Braver than picking out an outfit for me I think.  It was the lip gloss that made me laugh! There was a dark red (not bad) , but also a real bright magenta and the piece de resistance- the electric purple gloss. Guess what?  I wore that too!

Yes, that’s right. On more than one occasion I have donned electric purple lip gloss just because my husband bought it for me.  One time recently when I had it on, he asked me why I was wearing Halloween makeup, HA! I told him it was the gloss he got me for Christmas :).  While I look back on these things and chuckle, I also see the sentiment behind it.  He bought me these runway model looking boots (even though they aren’t quite me), because he is proud of me and in his eyes I AM the runway model that can pull off this look.  (struttin’ my stuff like a 90 year old so I don’t break my neck! 😀 ) 

It was a special first Christmas married and I felt loved and pampered.

So here I am, ready to go to bed so I can wake up in a few hours and see what Santa has brought me on our second Christmas.  I am curious and excited and can’t wait to see what he came up with for stockings this year.  I know he really struggles with it, but it is the thought that counts and I get a big kick out of picturing him looking puzzled as he searches for what to put in a ladies sock.  It’s that time of year when we go out of our way to be thoughtful of others and that is what warms my heart.

May you and yours have a wonderful holiday season!

– Rebekah

P.S. What was your first married Christmas like?  What was the first gift your significant other bought you? What is the funniest thing you have received?