As we bid adieu to the holiday season of 2010, I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my top two Christmas memories from the past. They both happened in the last decade, despite the fact that I’m otherwise totally thrilled to be saying good-bye to the first decade of this century.

Christmas 2001: Tim and I were seniors in college. His family had recently moved from Arkansas to California, and he was going to be headed out that way for the first time. He asked if I would like to come with him. I’d never been further west than Arkansas, so heck yes I wanted to go!

Not gonna lie, though, once my parents said that I could go, I got a little suspicious. Why on earth would they let me spend my Christmas break away from home? I totally packed a special dress just in case a proposal was in store.

And it was. I’ll save that story for another time, but Tim did propose to me that Christmas morning while we were on a walk together (totally NOT wearing the special dress). Even though we were so young, we felt ready to commit to each other. And my friends, that was an EXCELLENT decision. I think about being proposed to every year at Christmas, and I’m thankful that Tim had the good sense to ask me to marry him, and that I had the good sense to say, “Yes!”

Christmas 2008: A sort of tough year was winding down for us. After MUCH discussion (and yeah, some arguing) we decided that we were both ready to start a family. But you see, you don’t necessarily get to start one just because you say you are ready. Turns out, getting pregnant can be kind of difficult! (Seriously, this shocked me to realize). We discovered we were pregnant in September, but miscarried just a week later. It was a very difficult thing to experience, though we probably wouldn’t have ever realized that we were pregnant if we hadn’t been watching like hawks.

But on Christmas morning we were home with my family and had news to share. In between my parents’ stockings we hid an ultrasound picture of our little Darah (who literally looked like a peanut at that point). We were 9 weeks along, and were cautiously optimistic that we were actually going to have a baby.

No big announcements for us this year, but we’ll see what future Christmas mornings have in store for us. It is certainly an auspicious day! 🙂