And why is the carpet all wet, *Todd*?

I don't *know*, Margo!

 

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation



 One of my all time favorite Christmas movies is National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. It is considered a classic in our household and we watch it at least five times during the holiday season. It never fails to make us all hysterical. My Dad teases Mom-Mom Doris every holiday at dinner time by reenacting Aunt Bethany saying grace. Mom-Mom Doris is slightly hard of hearing so we all make this joke with her and Mom-Mom Doris is a good sport and laughs along.

Still cracks me up everytime.

I love the holidays and all the magic that goes with it. This Christmas I was really expecting Mr. Lemon to pop the question. In the weeks leading up the Christmas, I couldn't help myself but talk about it with my co-workers who were I am sure, so sick of hearing about it. I was 95% sure this was going to be it.

Christmas 2011 was an exciting time. My Dad decided to get my Mom a puppy for Christmas. This was the hardest secret to keep from my Mom since we talk multiple times a day and she can usually tell when I am hiding something (she has super Mom powers). We kept the puppy at our home and we planned on surprising my Mom Christmas morning. Moose and Maci were very welcoming to the puppy that had gotten carsick the entire ride home, all over Mr. Lemon's lap, and sweatshirt, and sneakers, and jeans, and my car, and basically everything. It was a lot of vomit for such a small puppy! She was happy to finally be out of the car, as were we!

Maci and Jill snuggling

 Every year on Christmas Eve, we celebrate it with the Lemon Family. We all do a Pollyanna and we give the kids presents because Christmas after all is about the kids! Like I said, I was 95% sure that the proposal was going to happen this Christmas. I thought, "What better night than Christmas Eve when EVERYONE was all together??"  So the whole time during Christmas Eve, every time Mr. Lemon would leave the room I would think, "This is it, he is going to get the ring and it is going to happen" and in walks Mr. Lemon with a Bud Light for himself. Darn. So as the night came to an end and we all started to say our good-byes I told myself, "you still have tomorrow morning for when you exchange gifts with just the two of us because maybe he wants to do it in private and doesn't want a big scene. Yeah...I am sure that's it. It will happen tomorrow morning." So off we went. We went home and played with our two Labbys and the new puppy who would be meeting her Mommy the next day.

The next morning it was time to exchange gifts (this was it! ahh!). I had gotten Mr. Lemon Kenny Chesney tickets, a new Laptop computer, and some small clothing items. Mr. Lemon had gotten me the Kindle Fire (amazeballs), Rascal Flatts tickets (love them!), and a 2012 Labrador Retriever Calendar (we all know how I feel about Labs).  The Rascal Flatts concert tickets later turned out to much more significant than I realized at time. Many of the songs that we are incorporating into the wedding are by Rascal Flatts.



How adorable!




"Oh, ok, wow we are done opening gifts?" I then quickly scanned the room looking for a smaller gift or anything at all that resembled a ring box but had no such luck. I then had a thought, "his pocket! I bet it's in his pocket" only to be let down by realizing his pajama pants did not have pockets. Shoot. Was I really going to have to go into work and explain to everyone that I was not engaged and it did not happen like I thought it would?

Bummer - Well I guess we should get showered and head over to my parents to surprise my Mom with her new puppy.



Jilly the Christmas Beagle