Christmas reflection Part THREE 2018

Today’s memory goes back 22 years. Stacey Meeks and I were married in April 1996 and lived in a tiny apartment in Center, TX. My sweet mother had gifted me with all the decorations and ornaments I needed for our first tree. That year, my handsome guy and I decorated the tree together and quickly learned that every time he would place an ornament on the tree, I ended up moving it. Let’s just say, that’s not his forte and, of course, I might be somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to tree decorating. LOL

We had so much fun shopping for each other. Our little tree had plenty of lovingly wrapped packages under it. Oh, how I enjoyed cooking, using my Christmas dishes and goldware (my mom always set our table at Christmas with fine china and goldware so she made sure I had some for the same), inviting friends over, cooking my husband’s favorite lasagna and derby pie, and baking so many sweets!

One funny, humiliating moment was when I had invited some of dear friends over who lived in a beautiful, big home. I had planned such a special meal, had the table set perfectly, my finest dishes, candles, linen napkins...the whole works. I was Martha Stewart personified!!! Everything was going nicely, everyone was laughing, talking, bragging on the food 😁, when I saw movement on the counter just past one of our guests shoulder. My heart stopped! One of the “benefits” of an apartment was “shared” critters. I saw a huge, and yes, I mean HUGE, roach!!!! It’s long antennas were twitching as it strolled across my perfectly clean counter toward the pie! I nonchalantly stood up and walked to the counter as if I had planned to do so. As I moved out of eye range with our guests, I motioned to Stacey what I saw. His eyes showed the same emotion I felt...surprise and panic at the same time. Normally, I would scream and go as far away as possible but my instinct to hide this humiliation kicked in and I grabbed some paper towels and covered and squished as quickly and quietly as I could. Everything in me wanted to scream but instead, I earned an oscar for my performance of a calm and intentional move to just wipe some imaginary “crumbs” from the counter. As far as I know, my guests never knew the near death experience they had with a huge creature from the dark!!

That first Christmas with the love of my life is one of my favorite memories! We didn’t have much money but that didn’t matter to us. We sat on the floor opening one gift at a time from each other talking, laughing and kissing, lots of kissing! 🥰 I’ll never forget the Eddie Bauer dresses and new shiny black boots he lavished on me. Somewhere in some boxes are pictures of this Christmas that will speak to the evidence of all the well thought out surprises that meant more than all the riches in the world.