Surprise, Surprise

One of the things that I love is a surprise. Creating them or getting them, it doesn't matter. The whole process of coming up with the surprise, then the anticipation of seeing someone be surprised is one of the best feelings of accomplishment that one can have - and being surprised makes you appreciate that someone wanted to do that for you.

Growing up, my Mom was the Queen of surprises. She could hide things for months and was always listening to things that we mentioned wanting during idle conversations. One year on my birthday, after I’d opened all the presents, my mom asked me to go get something out of the trunk of the car. Lo and behold, in the trunk was the 5-cd stereo that I’d wanted after my stereo had broken.

One Valentine’s Day I was surprised by a partner who set up an entire mini restaurant on the main stage, with candles and music and the whole shebang. (I’ll point out that the surprise didn’t go as he’d planned - after overhearing that there was going to be work happening on the stage the next morning, he called me and we frantically took everything down at 11 at night. But he put everything back up before the next night, so I still got to enjoy it.)

My boyfriend surprised me for Christmas last year with a pair of knee-high red boots that were absolutely perfect and are worn regularly now that the cold weather has returned.

My dad and stepmom surprised me with a stand mixer for my birthday after I rediscovered my love of baking.

I inherited that love of surprises from my mother and found that I enjoyed putting surprises together, even though I've not come close to her level of surprise expertise. So when I get the opportunity to surprise those around me, I’m taking it.

This last week, however, I was able to pull off my biggest surprise ever.

For Thanksgiving, I’d planned on going to my Dad and stepmom’s house to spend time with the family. While texting my younger brother, I discovered that he was planning to spend it alone. Off the cuff, I suggested, “Why don’t you come up here?”

He bought a ticket that night. We decided to surprise our Dad; neither of us was sure of the last time they’d seen each other, so it would be a good surprise.

A couple of days later, my brother asked, “What would happen if our sister wanted to come?”

“Are you kidding?? Yes!!”

The next day, she also bought her ticket.

I texted my stepmom to let her know (obviously, I’m not bringing two additional people to eat at someone’s house without giving them a heads-up), and we both agreed to keep it a secret.

Two weeks later, after my friends were subjected to me telling them how excited I was to have my siblings for a whole week, I picked them up from the airport. We went straight to dinner with my older sister and her husband, and then back to my house.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving were amazing. We still worked hard to keep up the secret, giving vague answers to my dad and updating my stepmom on what we were bringing and where we were. I was scheming on how best to reveal my siblings' presence to my Dad, eventually settling on asking him to come outside and help me get baked goods out of the car. We stopped and picked up our older sister on our way, and then the big moment arrived.

I told my siblings to stay in the car, and I hopped up the stairs and knocked on the door. After the initial greeting, I gestured and said "Daddy, I need some help getting stuff out of the car!"

Daddy took two steps out of the door before stopping on the porch, tears coming to his eyes as he saw my siblings.

I could not have had a happier Thanksgiving. Seeing my Dad so happy made my day, and he literally could not stop smiling. We even ended up staying much later than I had planned because I was just enjoying seeing him that happy. We've agreed that it might be impossible for me to top that surprise.

Surprises are, at their core, expressions of love. When I surprised my friend by showing up at her party, I could feel her happiness. When my Dad almost cried at the sight of my siblings, I could feel his happiness. Being able to do these things for others helps me to remember that other people's happiness is so important for giving me perspective on how my actions can affect others. Getting surprised, well, that reminds me that I have so many people around me who love me enough to create those moments for me.

My siblings have gone home now, and I'm back to my regular grind. But I'm sure that I'll be enjoying this successful surprise high for a few more days, at least.