Lars and I recall Christmases by where we were each year. Our first Christmas in love, neither of us knew about the other one’s feelings. I travelled home to Muncie from Romania for two weeks and Lars was in Denmark. I was so into him, but would never admit it. He emailed me and said that he wanted to call me...I didn’t argue. He called my house and talked to my sister and after that one brief conversation, Katie was convinced i should marry him. It was a magical conversation in the lobby of a mall where I made my friends wait forever so that i could talk to the infamous ’Lars.’ My face hurt from smiling so much the rest of the day. Talking to him that day made me feel encouraged and special....and oh so confused. (Admitting feelings didn’t come until 4 ½ months later)
Our next Christmas, we were married and living on Howard Street here in Muncie in a big old house with way too much space for the two of us...but no closets!!!. We painted (ok Lars painted) our living room a wonderful green color and my mom’s side of the family all came over for Christmas Eve, as well as Josh and Amanda Sandoz. We had a lovely tree that we cut down from a tree farm and decorated with our few ornaments. That was also the year of the bikes. My dad bought both of us bikes and it was actually warm enough a few days after Christmas to ride on the greenway!
Then came The Brick House. I was about 7 weeks pregnant and totally exhausted and nauseous. It was a blast announcing our up and coming addition to the family at the various gatherings. We had a little tiny artificial tree in our little apartment and made the little place as cozy as possible. We talked and talked about how different our next Christmas would be.
And so it was! We flew to Denmark and spent the holidays at Lars’ mom and dad’s house. We were basement dwellers for that week, eating way too much and way too often, but it was a lot of fun. Some food highlights were: roasted pork, lots of potatoes (one meal had three different types spuds), rye bread, liver pate, pig head (with some brain), herring salad, ris a`la mand (rice with almond), and Danish Christmas beer.
On Christmas Eve, we had a big dinner, then walked around the tree, holding hands and singing Christmas songs (i didn’t know them in Danish so i just held hands and walked) Luca had lots of gifts that we enjoyed opening and he sort of munched on the paper. I think that he might have been held for the entire week also...except for a few diaper changes! He loved all the attention and I am pretty sure that they all loved giving it to him. Now that we are home, he is stretching out and working on getting back to our time zone.
Next year?? Hmmmm.
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