Christmas day started out like any normal year.
Opened presents at my mom's house with her and my sister, made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and got ourselves ready for the day. Starting last year my mom and sister came to J's house with me to celebrate with his extended family and this year was no different. We arrived at their house around 11, chatted with his Grammy/aunt/cousins/sisters and got settled in for the day of festivities.
This picture was taken at probably 11:30....
way before I had any idea what was going to happen
Five years ago we started the tradition of Homemade gifts. Each person busts out their creative side, the hot glue gun, glitter, styrofoam, etc etc etc to make one homemade gift. We play it almost like white elephant (no trading allowed) where we draw numbers and each person gets their choice of present until they're all gone. It's always been very entertaining to see the amazing and sometimes last minute things that people bring and we always try and guess who made what.
Here's J with his Rein-beer and 40oz-Santa courtesy of his cousin.
Well little did I know but this year J rigged the homemade gift giving.
He had two sets of numbers that we all picked from. He had made one set of all number 13's and asked me to pick my number first making me get the last number in the group. Then as he turned the corner to have everyone else draw he replaced all the 13's with the normal 1-12 for the rest of the family. At the same time his mom went around telling everyone except me not to choose a specific gift, the one with two bows on it. She said she had a surprise so no one knew what was coming.
The moral of the story is that I ended up picking last and the only gift left was J's.
Inside of the gift bag that I received was an old tennis ball tube and inside that tube was the gift that J made. He had taken the base of a Ring Pop (of course he ate the candy first) and built a 6in styrofoam snowman on top of it. Everyone got a good laugh at it, I joked with J telling him he didn't do a very good job cleaning up the styrofoam from the craft room at home, and even tried to fit this snowman ring on my pinky finger.
At this point I still had absolutely no idea that anything was going to be different. There had been gifts much worse, much more obnoxious and much less creative in years before so I thought nothing of this silly snowman on a ring pop.
Then J says "I actually made another ring, do you want to see it?"
Still oblivious I responded with "you made two of these?"
But as he stands up, pulls a ring box out of his pocket and tears flood his eyes I knew!
He talked about how we met four and a half years ago and how I'm his best friend.
He said he loves me with his whole heart
and he can't wait to spend the rest of his life with me.
And then he said those four little words...
Will you marry me!?
I was so in shock and so beyond surprised. I didn't think this day was coming for a long time and I was literally left speechless. J was crying, I was crying, our families were crying and all I could do was hold onto the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. At one point someone actually said "Is that a yes?!" to which I yelled "Of course!"
J and I knew a long time ago that we were meant to be together forever and I am so excited that this day has come. It couldn't have been a better day! A Christmas proposal surrounded by our new big family followed by a champagne toast, more happy tears, and an absolutely perfect and beautiful ring.
And yes, incase you were wondering, he did go to Jared's. ;-)
This will be a day I remember forever.
12/25/2011
