my christmas surprise story

Update: sweet Nicole sent me pics!  See below!

I am finally sitting down to write the story of my surprise on Christmas Eve.
First you need a little background story.  This is how my husband handles surprises.  It is the story of our engagement in a nut shell… 

Hubby wants to go on a little hike. 
We drive to it. 
Road is snowed in, so little hike now = very long hike. 
I don’t want to go for womanly reasons, if you know what I mean. 
He pushes me to go. 
I say no. 
He says, “Fine, I’ll give you your ring some other time.” 

Horrible, right?  I know he just cannot keep surprises like that.  So I never expect them from him.  Well now he has proven me wrong, in a big way…

Christmas Eve morning we packed up and rushed out of the house to head to my folks’ in the mountains.  We had to stop for diapers and my hubby said we could go to Fred Meyer and go to Starbucks, which he calls “Fivebucks” and only justifies going there if it is a road trip, date or special occasion.  =)

First, I asked him to swing by my work so I could give them their Christmas card which also had a gift in it.  He asks, “Do we have to?”  “Yes,” I said, “it’s Christmas Eve; I don’t want to give it to them late when we get back.”  So he drove me there and said, “We’re just going to put it in the mailbox.”  I was like, “No, that is rude, plus they will see us on the surveillance cameras and be sad that we didn’t say ‘Hi’.”  That is when he stopped at the mailbox, very politely took the card envelopes from my hand, deposited them in the mailbox continued down the road.  Well, that was kind of rude, I thought.  I very consciously decided not to pick a fight about it.  We went on our way.

As we get close to Fred Meyer and Starbucks, he pulls out the Flip camera and asks me to clean it off because the lens is dirty.  I clean off the lens and give it back to him.  He tries to turn it on and sadly complains that the batteries are dead, “Oh man, I wanted to film you getting your Christmas present at your parents’ house.”  I’m thinking, then we will get new batteries there, why are you stressing out?

Then we round the corner to Starbucks.  I notice a van with excessive Christmas decorations on it, and before I am done processing that, Ty exclaims, “Who is that!?” and I see it is one of Ty’s friends, odd seeing him here Christmas eve, I think.  Until I realize what is even more odd: he is running across the street to a whole ‘gang’ which happens to be quite a few of our close friends and family, and as it dawns on me that I might be the target of some horrible –gasp- surprise that everyone but me knew about and will involve people staring at me for a prolonged period of time, which is my worst nightmare… I look back at that van and read the sign in the front window (I saved it and took a picture of it later so I could remember)…



…and start balling.  And proclaim over and over while crying that Ty is “so mean”.  And hide my face in my coat.  And tell Ty that I hate him.  And finally get out of the van and stand there crying while everyone stares at me.  They must have wondered if I didn’t like the van. 

When I was done making a fool of myself, self-consciously wiping my face and trying to check out the van while knowing everyone was staring at me, we all went into Starbucks and spent five bucks on a drink and visited for a while.  It was lovely, and I did kiss my husband and tell him I loved him and I loved the van and I did not, in fact, hate him, but never to surprise me again.  ;)

After it was done, hubby couldn’t believe I hated surprises, and said, “Would you really rather not had our friends there?”  I told him honestly, “If it was all about me, yes.  But you worked so hard for this surprise and wanted to share it, so I am glad they were there to share it with us.”  Plus many of them helped clean the van, hide it, make excuses for him while he detailed it and one of them brought it there for the surprise, so it was nice of him to include everyone.

And now I am cruisin’ the mom van in style…



It is 4 years newer than our Jetta and 7 years newer than my old van.  Everything was broken, and I do mean EVERYTHING, on the old van, so this one seems like a space ship compared to a wagon, seriously.  It is lovely and I feel super blessed and spoiled and still cannot believe that my hubby pulled off this huge surprise, saving all year, doing side jobs and lying telling me that he only made $100 in a whole weekend, and stashing the rest away for months and months!  I am blessed to have him taking care of me!

Thanks Nicole, for sending the pics, they're great!  =)

The End.