December is a month of a lot of festivity around here. Not only does it include Chachoo & Dulhan's wedding anniversary, but it's also the month of my birthday and M & my wedding anniversary as well. They're only two days apart. Which kind of sucks. I grew up with a birthday two weeks before Christmas. Usually that's a huge downer and people with birthdays near Christmas end up getting ripped off on the presents front. July birthdays bring huge parties and lots of gifts, but everyone's too busy with Christmas-related events to throw you a party and your relatives and friends already bought a present for you for Christmas that's waiting in their closet, so they don't go all-out on the gift they get you for your birthday.
I didn't actually have this kind of birthday experience growing up though, because my parents were really careful to make sure my birthday was as big a deal as it would have been if it didn't fall in December, so I had nice parties and far too many presents. No combining at all. So perhaps that's why I was lulled into the false idea that it would be no big deal to get married just 48 hours after my birthday. And my Mian has been trying to do the big combo move ever since. Which I adamantly (and angrily) refuse. He gets a big birthday fuss AND a wedding anniversary fuss, yet he tries to slyly COMBO on me. No sir!
This year, he took us all out for breakfast - eating breakfast at a restaurant is something he doesn't like much and I love. Then he'd made a surprise appointment for a manicure and pedicure for me, and he'd scheduled us to go for a movie afterwards. But he had NADA planned for our wedding anniversary so after I got done throwing a fit, we moved the movie plan over two nights and just did a low-key dinner & movie (The Tourist, which despite the bad reviews, I really enjoyed) on our wedding anniversary, which was a Monday night, and Chachoo and Dulhan took care of the baby for us.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that M said we should buy Chachoo & Dulhan a wedding anniversary present "but just this once." So we decided on a gift certificate so they could go to a fancy dinner and since they're limited to what they'll eat out we picked Red Lobster. They said they liked it and it was the best seafood they've had since being in the US. Then they went to a movie, but I don't remember which one. Our local theatres play a few new desi films, so it was one of those. They also bought us presents. For my birthday, despite me forcing M to tell them NOT to buy anything for me, they got me a nice leather wallet that I actually really love and I'm very happy they didn't listen to M! For our anniversary, they bought us blue shirts - also very nice! Then, afterwards, we all agreed no more presents on anniversarys!
Next up is Christmas. Usually the baby and I (and M, if he's available) go back to my parent's home during the years we're not in Pakistan to partake in their Christmas celebrations. This year, I'd hoped to be working and have enough money to go but my upcoming work project just keeps getting it's start date pushed back again and again (and again, unfortunately), so we won't be going. The baby has a Christmas gift on the way from his grandparents though, and he bought them each something too but it's yet to be packed and shipped. I wonder, if I remember to go to the post office tomorrow, how long will I have to wait in line and will it get there in time to be actual Christmas gifts rather than belated ones? We shall see.
Next up - January and all its boringness!
