Chris' Christmas Wish

You know how we wives always try to give our husbands little hints about things we would like?

Pointing out things we see in commercials or in store windows, casually mentioning over lunch how much we like the new pendant that the jewelry store is promoing, all those things?

I gave up on doing that years ago.

I am much more direct. As in:

"Hey Chris, see that digital photo frame? The one right there on the middle shelf, second from the left, with the 7" screen, made by Panasonic that's on sale right now? See it? That's what I want for Christmas."

And guess what I got?

The 7" panasonic digital photo frame, that wasn't on sale any more by the time he got back to buy it.

See, it works.

But I have also learned something else from years of trial and error in this department; sometimes guys give us hints too. Sometimes intentionally, other times unintentionally, they often point out things they would like to have, or think are cool.

And this year, I paid attention.

Not only did I pay attention, I did it up right. I thought it out, I planned it, and I delivered.

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Most of you know that my dear husband is a bit of a World of Warcraft fanatic.

You may also know that a new expansion to the game, called Wrath of the Lich King, was released last month.

You probably don't know that in the game the Lich King has a completely awesome sword called Frostmourne.

And if you don't know that, you probably won't know that a company called Epic Weapons has created a real life version of this sword.

Chris not only thought this sword was cool, he found it worthy to decorate his Chrstmas stocking with a felt version of it.

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So this is what happened on Christmas morning:

We all had a great time opening up our presents as a family. After the last presents were opened and thank you hugs given Chris started moving around cleaning up all of the wrapping paper and boxes.

This was when I put on a pair of reindeer antlers that had a piece of paper with a yellow exclamation mark pinned to them.

(In the game, when a person has a yellow exclamation mark over their head it means they have a quest to give).

Chris looked at me sideways for a few minutes before he came to me and asked if he was missing something. It took him a minute to figure out why I would possibly be wearing such a silly getup on my head, but when he got it he got excited and asked if I had a quest for him.

I gave him a scroll of paper I had prepared with a quest written out.

The quest was to spend time with each member of the family for 5 minutes, thereby concreting family values and togetherness on Christmas day. Each family member presented him with a siver bell upon completion of their activity.

When he had all of the bells, he returned to me.

At this point I had on my head a gold question mark, the symbol that the quest has been completed.

I told him that his reward would not be found under the Christmas tree, but instead in the box that the Christmas tree is stored in. (It was the only place I could think of to hide the thing, where it would fit, but not be found too early).

He ran to the garage and opened the box.

The sword was wrapped in towels, but he quickly removed the sword from them.

He was shocked. He was thrilled. He almost giggled and jumped up and down like a schoolgirl.

He didn't think I was paying attention when he had pointed it out.

He certainly didn't think he was likely to get it even if I had been paying attention.

In only a few minutes he had it mounted on the wall next to his computer.

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You may be interested in knowing it has already drawn blood.

Chris had to lean over his desk for something and when he stood up he hit his head on the sharp sideways dagger.

(Don't worry Grandma, it was just a small scrape).

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So in the end, I was the hero for giving the perfect gift.

It doesn't happen much, but I get him once in a while.

And it made my Christmas day that much better.