Our First Married Christmas

When I said "I do" three months ago, I knew that everything was changing for the better. I got to marry my best friend! I know I wasn't the first person in the entire world to do it, but when our friend, our officiant, said, "you may kiss the bride", I felt like we were the only two people on the planet.

As people came to congratulate us, all I was thinking about was just when we could finally have a moment to ourselves. I know I spent a year and a half planning such an extravagant party but I almost didn't want to go to the damn party now that I had you.

The four years we spent together before we got married flashed in front of my eyes like scenes from a movie; our first kiss, our first date, our first Christmas as a couple, our first anniversary.

And my favorite memory of all, standing in the lantern room of the Tokyo Digital Museum of Art while you were on one knee asking me to yours forever. According to you, my silence was the longest ten seconds of your life but I think I was just caught off guard.

And then we had our first dance as Mr. and Mrs. I never felt such joy, such happiness, as our loved ones cheered us on when you dipped me as the song ended.

After our honeymoon, I was looking forward to the holidays together. I was excited for our first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years together. I was excited to deal with all the holiday excitement and then go home together for the first time.

When Halloween rolled around, I cried watching you pass out candy and compliment all the kids' costumes while "Hocus Pocus" played in the background. I began to imagine what Halloween would be like when we had children, dressing them up in funky costumes and being "that" family. When Thanksgiving came up, I was so happy to lay in bed next to you after going to three houses. I could only imagine what the process would be like once we had children. Would we still go to three houses? Or would we opt to host at our place, which would be a different house to accomodate however many children we decided to have?

And now the Christmas season is upon us. The best part of all this.

Yesterday, you came home to me putting up the Christmas tree. You wrapped your arms around me while I put up the decorations and you have no idea how long I've been waiting for that moment. That one, precious moment. And I know that every year, I can look forward to that little moment of you wrapping your arms around me while I decorate the tree.

And one year, I hope that we'll be decorating the tree with our kids, and then afterward we can watch Elf and drink hot chocolate. Then we'll put them to bed and we can set the stage for Santa and talk about what we're most excited for when they open their presents.

I hope you understand that I'm so excited about the life we're building together. I never planned on making it past 22 and now I'm 26 and I've never been happier.

They say the first year of marriage is the hardest and I know we're only 3 months in, but so far I'm really enjoying being with you.

To think that after 3 months, I've experienced so many firsts with you, and I still have a lifetime of firsts to experience.