A few years ago I fell flat on my face when it came to giving my Christmas present to Bryan. I thought I had found the perfect gift and was overly excited about my idea. When Christmas morning came and the surprise was a podometer Bryan was disappointed. He had saved money from several side jobs and had bought me a Kitchenaid mixer. I was devastated. How could I have been so far off?
Since that Christmas, I spend every November racking my brain for ideas and have been successful in coming up with the perfect gift. Then this year, I was at a loss. I had gotten him a bow, medium format camera, and a fixed 200m lens for his camera and didn't know how I could trump them. When Bryan was home a couple weeks ago, we went Christmas shopping, and stopped at Al's to pick up the gift idea we had for my brother. While we were there, Bryan had to make the usual stop at the gun counter. This time, he only looked at the .22 rifles. Usually he looks at the shot guns, hand guns, specialty guns, and so on. When the guy at the counter told him the price, Bryan swallowed and gave it back. Little did he know that his gulp gave me an idea. I was lucky (?) that he was going back to California for training, and would have plenty of time to get his gift. I went on one of my lunches, so he wouldn't be suspicious if I wasn't available after work. The guys at Al's thought I was a wonderful wife. And the background check was a little interesting, as I was born in England, but am an American citizen. I even had enough time to make a really nice card, wrap up his present perfect and drop it off at my mom's the next time I picked him up at the airport. My brother happened to notice an extra gift under the tree several days later, and asked my mom "WHO'S GETTING THAT?!" I also bought some ammo and a bore snake for the new gun, and wrapped those too. This way, Bryan would have no idea that his gift wasn't really at home, and wouldn't be able to guess his gift due to the weird shape it was.
Christmas morning finally came, and as we passed all the presents out, Bryan came across the 'true' present and couldn't believe what I had done. I even had written a special note inside the handmade card, but as he started to read it (with me looking over his shoulder) he stopped about 2 lines in. Both of us had tears in our eyes. The gun wasn't the real gift. It was the fact that he was home, finally home. It wasn't too hard to hide our tears, as everyone was happily ripping into Christmas gifts, but my mom noticed. She took a picture of us in a tight hug, smiles from ear to ear. I don't think I'll ever be able to trump this Christmas.
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