My dear husband, however, is very, very different. He loves to surprise, and he loves to be surprised. He is quite the Christmas traditionalist, fervent in his beliefs that all presents, save for one pair of pajamas given on Christmas Eve, are to remain mysterious and unopened until The Fat Man has come and gone.
As you can imagine, the holiday season is just a blast in our house.
Me: "Babe, just give me a hint."
Hubs: "I bought it for you."
Me: "That is not a hint! Give me a real hint!"
Hubs: "Absolutely not. You'll just have to wait until Christmas."
Me: "What if I don't like it? Don't be a jerk. Have I ever mentioned how much I love you? What do I need to say to get you to tell me what IT IS?!"
Hubs: "It's like negotiating with terrorists. I give in this time, I'll have to give in every time. And I don't have enough ransom money. Stop whining and go make me a sandwich. I love you."
Four years ago, he managed a victorious win over my surprise-ruining ways. Three weeks before Christmas, the harassment commenced. One afternoon, though, I got a reply I wasn't expecting. Sitting on the living room couch after asking yet again for a hint, he responded, "It's in this room." Huh? John literally laughed out loud in reaction to the look on my face. I don't know what I was more confused about, the fact that he said it was in the room, yet we had no presents under the tree that year because Madeline was eight months old and crawling and gifts in baby reach does not end well, ever; or the fact that he actually gave me some small hint rather than the usual blase retort.
I spent the next 21 days going insane. I tore that room apart no less than once a day. I would have a brilliant spark of inspiration while somewhere else in the house and would take off running towards the living room, just to return empty handed when my hunch didn't pan out. I accused John of flat out lying to me, that the present was not even in the house, that he was just doing this to torture me. He assured me that while that was tempting, watching this neurotic show was ten times more entertaining. Bastard.
Finally, Christmas freaking Morning!!!! Mr. Tradition has a rule that you open presents one person at a time, taking turns in order from youngest in age to oldest. He made sure we followed that rule to the tee, also adding that everyone would be opening their biggest present last. I rushed my baby girl through her first Christmas present opening*, dying to find out where in the heck this mythical unicorn of a gift had been hiding all this time.
*It's okay, she doesn't remember it anyway.
My turn. I was sitting on the floor with Madeline, and I hopped up onto my knees, bouncing with anticipation. He grinned at me for a minute before standing up and walking over to the tree. I glare at him quizzically when he reaches up, about seven and a half feet high on the tree, and from behind an ornament on an interior branch, pulls out a sparkling diamond necklace.
I jumped up so fast and screamed! I ran over to the dear boy, punched him in the arm, grabbed the necklace, then threw my arms around his neck and gave him the biggest, wettest kiss ever. It was beautiful, so lovely, in fact, that it had completely blended in with the glowing decorations on our family Christmas tree for almost an entire month. I had been driving myself crazy trying to figure out where the freaking thing was and it was in front of my face the whole time. Well played, Mr. Floren. My most agonizing, torturous, exciting, and memorable Christmas gift ever.
This post was inspired by the lovely people over at [W]rite of Passage. Feel free to head on over and check it out!
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