Our First Christmas Together
Alternate Title--Thank You Note to John
We spent our first Christmas together and it was better than I ever expected (at this point I should stop being so surprised about how nicely everything works, but if I did, life would be boring). First of all, rather than diamonds, flashy big TVs and cars that were being flashed across all of the holiday ads, you bought me many wonderful gifts that I wanted but didn't interfere with our master plan (for the rest of you: we're no longer using credit cards or spending beyond our means--it's a very simple plan and it's been working fantastically since the end of August. Once we get out of debt, we will be sitting pretty and we will have finished working on the interior of our house!). I cannot express how excited I am about all my shiny new books, my CDs and my gorgeous photograph that perfectly sets off our newly painted dining room. I kid you not, I spread the books out on the floor and rolled on them. The dog helped, of course.
Beyond gifts, I've never had such an overwhelming sense of happiness. I repeat myself all the time about this but it needs to be said. You are the best guy in the world and I'm so happy, so lucky, and so excited that you are my partner in this not quite-as-we'd-like-it-to-be world. Every day I get a gift from you--when you help me turn around this house, when you nicely "teach" me how to become organized and yet, still have the ability to smile at me and kiss me when I slip back into my old ways. The best gift that I get from you every day is being allowed to be my goofy, happy and laughing self. Let me give an example of one of random exchanges (my favorite of the holidays):
Scene: John and I are driving out of the development and heading towards Wawa because we were a little hungover at Christmas dinner and didn't get to gorge ourselves the way that we wanted. We decided to have Christmas Dinner: Part Deux, in the form of six inch hoagies at 10pm. We started talking about something that I cannot for the life of me recall but this snippet stands out.
John: You know, like a rabbit punch.
Melina: A rabbit punch? What's a rabbit punch?
John: You know, like a punch to the back of the head.
Melina: During sex? That's a donkey punch! Who'd want to punch a rabbit?
John: Well, with that reasoning...why would anyone punch a donkey?
Melina: Because he was a bad donkey?
Cue laughter and defining what constitutes a "bad donkey".
(Please be advised that I don't condone the domestic abuse of donkeys, I was speaking in hypotheticals only)
Onto the next part of my thank you note. On Christmas this year, you received about 20 DVDs that your dad painstakingly transformed from all the old footage of home movies over your lifetime. For hours, I was transfixed as I watched you morph from a tiny baby to an adorable cherubic toddler with a mane of blond curls! Before my eyes you became an adorable little boy and then an older brother. You were adorably sweet to your sister, often helping her open her Barbie stuff and taking the time to show her how the elevator worked on her Barbie Mansion. You became the cameraman, and you would carefully set the scene of wherever your family was. You'd capture each member of the family and ask your brother to give you a smile and a wave (when he wasn't running around wrecking havoc on the scene). I felt your awe as you scanned over a Blue Whale on a trip to DC. I saw your boyish enthusiasm when you filmed about 10 minutes of the same plane when you went to the airforce base! I would laugh so hard I would begin crying over your ernestness, and your sweetness in the fifth grade presentation of Johnny Appleseed and other hilarious (yet adoreable) skits. Then you became a sad tweener, slightly awkward and no longer wanting to be in front of the cameras. There wasn't a reason for it, you were still the cutie that you always were...but I remember running away from the cameras crying at the same age, so I felt your pain. We'll skip over some of the other footage that you found "horrifying" and "embarassing" (wrestling and your directorial debut of your first Godzilla movie) and I'll just say that I'm glad my parents weren't always there to film some of my teenage moments of horror. Finally, I saw you come into to your own on the football field. The confident stance that I've comed to know and love was present, your voice--loud and commanding, you were having fun! I should've known that knocking into people would've opened you up! It was an amazing gift to watch the boy evolve and become the man. I love you, and thank you for wonderful holiday.
Love always,
Me
We spent our first Christmas together and it was better than I ever expected (at this point I should stop being so surprised about how nicely everything works, but if I did, life would be boring). First of all, rather than diamonds, flashy big TVs and cars that were being flashed across all of the holiday ads, you bought me many wonderful gifts that I wanted but didn't interfere with our master plan (for the rest of you: we're no longer using credit cards or spending beyond our means--it's a very simple plan and it's been working fantastically since the end of August. Once we get out of debt, we will be sitting pretty and we will have finished working on the interior of our house!). I cannot express how excited I am about all my shiny new books, my CDs and my gorgeous photograph that perfectly sets off our newly painted dining room. I kid you not, I spread the books out on the floor and rolled on them. The dog helped, of course.
Beyond gifts, I've never had such an overwhelming sense of happiness. I repeat myself all the time about this but it needs to be said. You are the best guy in the world and I'm so happy, so lucky, and so excited that you are my partner in this not quite-as-we'd-like-it-to-be world. Every day I get a gift from you--when you help me turn around this house, when you nicely "teach" me how to become organized and yet, still have the ability to smile at me and kiss me when I slip back into my old ways. The best gift that I get from you every day is being allowed to be my goofy, happy and laughing self. Let me give an example of one of random exchanges (my favorite of the holidays):
Scene: John and I are driving out of the development and heading towards Wawa because we were a little hungover at Christmas dinner and didn't get to gorge ourselves the way that we wanted. We decided to have Christmas Dinner: Part Deux, in the form of six inch hoagies at 10pm. We started talking about something that I cannot for the life of me recall but this snippet stands out.
John: You know, like a rabbit punch.
Melina: A rabbit punch? What's a rabbit punch?
John: You know, like a punch to the back of the head.
Melina: During sex? That's a donkey punch! Who'd want to punch a rabbit?
John: Well, with that reasoning...why would anyone punch a donkey?
Melina: Because he was a bad donkey?
Cue laughter and defining what constitutes a "bad donkey".
(Please be advised that I don't condone the domestic abuse of donkeys, I was speaking in hypotheticals only)
Onto the next part of my thank you note. On Christmas this year, you received about 20 DVDs that your dad painstakingly transformed from all the old footage of home movies over your lifetime. For hours, I was transfixed as I watched you morph from a tiny baby to an adorable cherubic toddler with a mane of blond curls! Before my eyes you became an adorable little boy and then an older brother. You were adorably sweet to your sister, often helping her open her Barbie stuff and taking the time to show her how the elevator worked on her Barbie Mansion. You became the cameraman, and you would carefully set the scene of wherever your family was. You'd capture each member of the family and ask your brother to give you a smile and a wave (when he wasn't running around wrecking havoc on the scene). I felt your awe as you scanned over a Blue Whale on a trip to DC. I saw your boyish enthusiasm when you filmed about 10 minutes of the same plane when you went to the airforce base! I would laugh so hard I would begin crying over your ernestness, and your sweetness in the fifth grade presentation of Johnny Appleseed and other hilarious (yet adoreable) skits. Then you became a sad tweener, slightly awkward and no longer wanting to be in front of the cameras. There wasn't a reason for it, you were still the cutie that you always were...but I remember running away from the cameras crying at the same age, so I felt your pain. We'll skip over some of the other footage that you found "horrifying" and "embarassing" (wrestling and your directorial debut of your first Godzilla movie) and I'll just say that I'm glad my parents weren't always there to film some of my teenage moments of horror. Finally, I saw you come into to your own on the football field. The confident stance that I've comed to know and love was present, your voice--loud and commanding, you were having fun! I should've known that knocking into people would've opened you up! It was an amazing gift to watch the boy evolve and become the man. I love you, and thank you for wonderful holiday.
Love always,
Me
Labels: childhood movies, christmas, gifts, john, love
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