Parental Christmas

This year was Kessa's first Christmas. But I don't have the pictures. I need to wait for Aunt Jessa to give them to me before I can blog them. (hint, hint) So instead, I will tell you about what BJ and I got each other for Christmas!

So, some of you probably don't know, but I am 1/8th Norwegian. I took 2 years of Norwegian in high school (don't remember most anything, though) and have dreamt of going to Norway my entire life. Or, at least since Grandma Hall promised to take me on a cruise of Norway if I became fluent enough to translate for her. (Hence taking two years in high school.) I also happen to love the game Ticket to Ride. In fact, I love it so much that every Tuesday night, several of my family members get online and play a game or two together. So when I saw Ticket to Ride—Nordic Countries, I knew I had to have it. Unfortunately, BJ and I were quite poor and scrimping every penny to save up a down payment for a house. So I sacrificed for the time being, figuring that we could always buy it later. But I was wrong! Turns out, it was a limited edition. A few months ago we got a coupon for any Ticket to Ride game and BJ had a full-time job, so we decided to buy it, only to find out that it had been discontinued months and months before. I almost cried.

Fast forward several months. I have blocked this horrible moment from my memory. BJ is trying desperately to think of what to give me for Christmas (picking out gifts is one of his weaknesses) when it hit him. He was giddy for the next month. Every day or two he'd break into a huge grin and remind me that I was going to love my Christmas. Seeing him that excited made me really excited to open it. I was completely clueless. So you can imagine my joy and surprise when I opened…

I then proceeded to win my next 2-3 games. It was awesome. I was well pleased.

Meanwhile, I was spending my days secretly working on BJ's Christmas while he was at work, careful to have it all put away by the time he got home. Sure, we slowly stopped eating yummy meals, and our house was slowly giving way to tornado season, but I hoped he wouldn't notice. I hoped that when he opened his Christmas present, he would forgive me. Here is a picture of when I first started putting it together:

Anyone know who that is? It's Mega Man, of course!* The afghan is made up of over 900 squares** stitched together. My bragging rights? I designed the entire thing.

By the time Christmas break came around, I only had 25 rows done (out of a planned 40). But it was the most important rows, and I had been working on it as much as Kessa would allow (hooray for naps!), so I figured it was good enough. So I wrapped it up with a skein of yarn, promising to finish it. This is what BJ opened (doll not included):

I'll be honest. The closer Christmas came and the more work I put into it, the less sure I was that he'd like it. I mean, we already have about 12 billion blankets. BJ has assured me many times that it is actually quite the opposite. I think he was as pleased with my gift as I was with his. It was a good Christmas.

And just for fun, Bonnie and her girls, Ellie and Sarah, came to visit once while I was working on it. They did a great job of keeping my secret for me. And Ellie did a great job of "helping" me crochet. Here she is tying the tails of the squares together for me. Apparently she has been tying everything she can find into knots now. Sorry Bonnie!

*For those who don't know, Mega Man is a video game character that BJ loves. He's been trying to get me to play for well over a year now, but I have to be able to beat my first board. This doesn't encourage me to keep trying.

**Well, it will be when it's all finished, anyway.