Our First Celebration of Christmas

I'm leaving town this Friday with the rest of my immediate family to spend ten days around Christmas with my grandparents , aunts, uncles and cousins on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. I'm not returning until December 29th, five days before the wedding. :0!! The trip has been in the works for a year or two, and the plane tickets were purchased even before I was engaged, so as soon as I got the ring on my finger my family made sure that there was a ticket for Brent too. Sadly, when Brent started his new job in October, his boss let him know that he couldn't give him that time off for Hilton Head. Brent and I will therefore be separated for Christmas. :(

We celebrated Christmas together last night! We started out the evening opening presents at Chocolatine. As we were entering the shop at a quarter to six with bushels of presents in our arms, Hugo had to call out, "Um, we are closed. Sorry!" I asked, "Closed? Is there no time for hot chocolate or anything?" A light in Hugo's head turned on and he said, "Oh, just like ten minutes for hot chocolate? Of course. I thought you were expecting a bigger party with all of the gifts in your arms."

Brent and I quickly sat down for hot cocoa. He had me open a little gift first. A Starbucks Gold Member card. He knows me and loves me well, especially considering his disdain for coffee and his joking efforts to stop me from drinking it. :)

Hugo then served us our hot cocoa. "Looks like someone is celebrating Christmas!" Brent and I started gulping the drink down, knowing Hugo needed to pack up and go home as soon as we were done.

Next it was Brent's turn to open a gift. The first package I let him open held a brand new, unopened bag of sugar. Yes, sugar. He was just as confused as you are, but he thanked me sweetly. :)

My turn to open Brent's main gift to me. A new camera. A sweet camera. Complete with rechargeable battery, something gigabyte video memory card and nice leather case. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thanked him profusely, and was especially thankful when I thought of all the beautiful pictures on Kauai we can take (did I tell you that's where Brent's taking me for our honeymoon?).

The next gift Brent opened was coconut oil. He then realized what the sugar was for, and was able to guess what the last remaining two presents were. Our favorite homemade kettle corn calls for sugar, coconut oil, and, of course, popcorn kernals, and for best results must be popped in a Whirly Pop Popcorn Popper. Sure enough, his next gift to open was popcorn kernals and lastly, the main gift, a Whirly Pop Popcorn Popper.

After thanking each other and enjoying our hot cocoas to their last drops, we hustled out of Chocolatine and drove down the street to an outdoor skating rink for a round of ice skating. The scene was perfect. Christmas lights were everywhere, fun Christmas music was constantly playing, snowflake light shadows were cast onto the ice, and the rink was set right next to a pond glistening in the christmas light.

They gave us an hour session on the ice for the money we paid, and at first Brent and I didn't think we were going to want to stay on the ice that long. However, skating round and round while holding hands and having fun, deep or flirty conversations, doing our best at figure skating moves that seemed to always end with a kiss, racing each other around the rink, it was much less easy to get disinterested in what we were doing than we thought it would be. When we finally decided we had gotten our fill of skating, we sat down to take our skates off, and in a matter of minutes heard over the loud speaker, "Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your session on the ice." One hour had flown by fast!

Both of us agreed it was a perfect evening with perfect company.