Christmas 2015 – Recap – Caiti's Crossing

I invest a lot in sentimentality. One of the main driving reasons for my passion for photography is the want to preserve as much as I can; to capture every moment I can and hold on to it for eternity. There isn’t much I enjoy more than spending time with Mychal, my boyfriend. Pair this with the fact that my favorite holiday is Christmas and you’ll have the beginning of this story. I’m always fooled when Mychal acts stumped by some task. I actually believe that he is having an issue doing whatever it is, so in early December when he kept saying that he had no idea what to do for me for Christmas, I fell for it. I had a blast planning and buying for his Christmas presents and when Christmas FINALLY rolled around, I was so so so excited to watch him open his gifts. He showed up to my house late morning on Christmas Eve (that’s when we always open presents) bearing a plate full of Christmas treats, which he hands to me, then he goes back to his car and gets this massive box and brings it into the house and puts it by the tree next to the scattered other presents that I had laid out for him to open. I was intrigued to say the least. I had to know what he had come up with. – We have always just chosen one of us to go first, that person opens all of their gifts, then the other opens all of theirs. I was stupid curious at this point so I said I wanted to go first and he had no qualms. So I sit in the floor next to this huge box and start tearing off wrapping paper and finally manage to open it. Inside, there were several other wrapped boxes, one unwrapped gift, and several packages of Reese’s peanut butter cups. So I got the candy out first, thankful that he’d done even this because I’d been craving them all week. Then I grabbed the unwrapped gift. It turned out to be a gift for our cat, Max. Mychal and Max have quite the bromance, to which I often take second seat. He loves this cat and this cat loves him. I would say unconditionally but this would be false as food is often a condition of Max’s. Mychal bought Max a build-your-own-fort kit. Tons of plastic rods and connectors so that they could craft this structure and toss a blanket over it so Max could play in it, sleep in it, tear it apart, whatever he wanted. I’ll share more about that later. I set that aside and grabbed one of the wrapped gifts. It was thin and light. I tore open the wrapping paper and found a DVD: Minions. But attached to the front of the DVD were several personally made “date night” coupons, good for one free movie night whether at home or out on the town. This was already so sweet in my opinion.

Fort kit — This is a picture from after the frame was assembled and a sheet had been thrown over it.

But I dove back into the box and pulled out the next wrapped gift. It was heavy. So I opened it and it was a white box, unmarked. I slowly opened it, concerned because of how heavy it was. Inside were at least 10 bottles of one of my favorite brands of nail polish. All kinds of colors, all of my favorites included, and several Mani/Pedi vouchers because he knows I love it when he paints my nails. So, at this point I’m good. I’m all happy and ready to see him open his gifts. Then I look back into the box and get the last gift, a tiny gift bag, which turned out to be from his mother. Inside was a Starbucks gift card (because I’m basic) and a tiny box. I took the box out of the bag and opened it to find these gorgeous white and blue diamond earring studs. No lie, these things are beautiful.

So now I’m done and he opens his gifts. A new desk chair, lots of new clothes, Beats Studio headphones, Magic: The Gathering cards, and several other things.

We cleaned things up around the tree and I was putting our stuff together when he said he was going out to his car to get his iPod so he could add some new music to it and try out his new Beats. I didn’t call his bluff, or even notice it at all. He went out and came back a moment later. He opened the door and looked around the it at me and said, “Oh, hey babe, I forgot this in the car. It’s to you but it doesn’t have a name listed under ‘from’.” He handed me the gift and I gave him a few puzzled looks. He told me to open it because he didn’t know who it was from either. I unwrapped the box and took the lid off, then removed two layers of tissue paper, under which I found a letter from Santa informing me that I had been such a good girl that he had brought my present an entire day early and that he would be sure to leave some extra coal in Mychal’s stocking. So I set the letter aside and removed some more tissue paper and wound up unwrapping an iPad mini 4! Just what I had been saying I’d wanted for so long now! Along with the iPad was a $50 gift card to Best Buy to purchase a case. So after thanking him profusely, he suggests that we go to Best Buy right away to get a case because he knows that I am the most clumsy creature on the planet and will surely damage it without some kind of protection. That’s when we left. We got in his car and drove to Best Buy.

I picked out a smart case, he helped me. Then as we’re walking toward the checkout, there’s a huge stack of PlayStation4 Call of Duty bundles, and he decides to pick one up… And a camouflage controller… So we left the store with an iPad smart case, an iPhone otterbox, a PS4 COD bundle, controller, and my jaw on the ground. We went home and had a crazy good time the rest of the day competing on the PS4 and just being happy together.

I left something out. The Tuesday before Christmas Mychal and I met in town after work to attend a couple of Christmas parties together. So we meet and I get into his car and as we begin driving he hands me a tiny bag with an even tinier box… I opened it and inside was the most stunning thing I’ve seen to date. I was staring a princess cut opal ring cushioned by diamonds with diamonds trailing down the band. I was speechless. And I still am every time I look at it. I love that he knew how much I’d love showing it off, so he gave it to me before our parties 😛

In addition to how amazing this Christmas was from Mychal alone, my parents had me pick out a necklace of my choice from any jeweler and they would get it for me. I chose a silver cross with a rose gold heart coming around from the back to close in the center. I couldn’t forget the reason for the season.