Advent- part 2

I started a new tradition this year during advent. On each sunday we have a special dinner, typically including the neighbors(Jax and Dan), and use our fine china and crystal, even the kids. We eat in the formal dining room and light the advent wreath. The kids have so much fun helping me set the table. With each klink of the silverware falling on plates or bumping into glasses my heart stops for a minute and then I breathe. I have always used my china far more than anyone I know but still not enough. This year I was blessed to inheirit one of my closest aunt's china and crystal. She died many years ago and her husband is getting very sick with parkinson's and told me he wanted to see it to its "rightful owner" before he died and brought it to me this summer. I was lucky enough to live right around the corner from my aunt and uncle when Scott and I got married and I was thankful to be able to take her to radiation treatments and be with her in her dying days. I just sent my uncle a Christmas card letting him know that He and Joan are thought of and prayed for every time i use and clean those special dishes. To me they are like that story of the woman who had bought very expensive, fancy lingerie and was saving it for a special occasion and her sister ended up putting it on her for the first time under her dress in her coffin and it still had the tags. Lord knows I don't want to be buried with dishes, so by golly I am going to use them as much as I can. If I am surrounded by dishes when I die, I'll know I'm in hell.
Another nice thing I learned this Advent is something Emily's school does. The have advent angels and are randomly assigned a person in another grade for couple weeks before Christmas. They make cards and crafts and do special things with this person. I love how they intergrate things between different grades. When i was in school every class was against the other. There wasn't much friendliness or mingling. Well, I thought about it and Scott has been my advent angel this year. I have been so plagued with sinus infections and feeling drained and he has really picked up the slack. Last thurs. night I started throwing up with diarrhea all over the bathroom and he kept coming in to help me and get me trash bags and towels and new clothes. He went to work and as soon as he got there, I called him and told him I just couldn't take care of the kids. Without hesitation he packed up his laptop and hurried home to be the domestic goddess of the day. He got me chicken noodle soup and sprite and kept the kids away so I could rest. It was really thoughtful. After 13 years together sometimes we seem to communicate as an automated voice teller machine with little variation in the things we say but his actions spoke volumes.
Tomorrow will mark the 12 anniversary of our engagement. It seems like decades. I will never forget that special night and can't imagine how much work he put in to pulling that off. What is also funny about that same christmas is that I really wanted a kitchenaid stand mixer. I assured him there was nothing demeaning to me as a woman to buy that for me. When I came home from college I was totally snooping at his house when I found it. It had to be the mixer. But no, I couldn't wait a whole week. I opened it and I tore the paper. I totally panicked and took it back to Famous and had it rewrapped. Yes, it was the best Christmas ever---a kitchenaid mixer...oh yeah... and getting engaged to the greatest guy on earth!!!