...I have never received a Christmas gift that made me cry... until now (it was a good thing, trust me). Ok, let me set the stage:

Earlier this month Ed and I sat down after dinner to watch the Rankin and Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special on TV. I had never seen it before, but it was one of the Christmas specials Ed grew up with and his favorite. I really enjoyed getting to share that with him. While we were watching, I mentioned off hand that the Christmas special *I* grew up with is fairly obscure and never played anymore, and in truth I didn't know if they ever played it besides the year my parents caught it on tape. It came out the year I was born (1983) and is called "Buttons and Rusty - The Christmas Tree Train". It's a cartoon about a little bear cub and a little fox accidently get aboard a train full of Christmas trees heading for the city. They run around down town and end up in the decorated window of a department store. Santa finds them and brings them home to their frantic parents at the end. I loved this cartoon growing up, and wore out the tape it was on. In all honesty I never expected to see it again short of finding the ancient VHS tape somewhere in my mom's library.

So we were just about finished unwrapping gifts this morning, and Ed had intentionally saved two for last. He had me open the larger one first, and I was a little confused when I got the paper off. He'd wrapped up the little personal DVD player he won in the Yeager Christmas raffle earlier this month. So when I gave him a puzzled look, he handed me the other package. When I unwrapped that, I found an original VHS release of Buttons and Rusty's Special Christmas. I couldn't believe it! Not only had he remembered my comment, but he went out and found a copy for me! I burst into tears and I've been happy-sniffly all morning. His second surprise (and what the DVD player was for) was that he'd taken the tape and used his own equipment and the video tools at work to make a DVD copy of it for me so I never have to worry about the tape wearing out. He opened up the DVD player and pressed play so that we could watch it together. While it's obvious at points that the DVD came from a 20 yr old tape, that only adds to the nostalgia for me. This was, beyond a doubt, the sweetest and most thoughtful Christmas gift he's ever given me. I'm still just blown away.

Things I did this afternoon/evening:

1. Washed dishes
2. Cooked dinner
3. Ate dinner
4. Made tomato sauce (gravy for Ed's benefit) for lasagna
5. Baked 3.5 dozen "Acorn" cookies (yum)
6. Made coffee
7. Cooked noodles for Ed's pasta salad
8. Cooked noodles for lasagna
9. Properly mixed ricotta for lasagna
10. Built one large lasagna, one small lasagna, and a third dish of noodle bits w/ sauce topped w/ cheese out of the leftovers
11. Froze the latter two for later
12. Made garlic butter
13. Watched Ed build antipasto salad (stole a noodle)
14. Washed dishes
15. Crashed