Christmas Eve

Marshall got up this morning and went shopping for some stocking stuffers for me. While he was gone, Cristal's nephew came by to pick up some autographed Army Wives photos that Marshall had picked up for Cristal. Apparently, her sisters are big fans of the show and she had asked me at Family Christmas if they might could come visit. But with all the changes in cast this year, the best we were able to do for her was two autographed pictures for them. Lots of people often ask Marshall and I about visiting our film sets and usually we can work it out, but both of us are so busy at work that it only really works when we are able to have the other one come with the visitors. For instance, my Mom and Aunt Jo came to visit Marshall's set of Army Wives a couple of years ago but I was off work and was able to go with them. That allowed me to tell them all about what was going on and to walk them around and introduce them to people. If they had just been visiting Marshall alone they would have been limited in what they could have done since he would have been working. Most people don't understand as they have never been on a film set and don't know how it works. Marshall and I also can't just walk away any time we want during the day either to show around visitors.

After Marshall's shopping was done, we went to lunch and had my favorite - mexican! Then we dropped off a bag of linens to Goodwill and headed home to change clothes. We were going to go see The Hobbit matinee, but wanted to meet my Mom at the 7pm candle light service downtown directly after. So we needed to make sure we were dressed for the candle light service before we went to the movie as there would be no time in between to change. Since there had been a lot of negative criticism about the 3D version of The Hobbit since they were using a new technology, we opted for the standard version. It was great! I didn't, however, realize that it was going to be 3 movies. We both used the bathroom before we left and that's when Marshall realized he wasn't wearing his wedding band. He started freaking out thinking he had lost it somewhere at the theater. He went back to look in the restroom while I went to the theater to look under our seats. The workers helped us look to no avail. Freaking out, Marshall wanted to go home and see if by some miracle he took it off at home and didn't remember. Needless to say, by this time there was no way we were making it all the way downtown for the church service. The whole way home, Marshall was on the verge of tears saying this was just the perfect horrible ending to a horrible year. If he indeed did lose his ring, he was right that it was a horrible way to end the year. When we got home we scrambled to try to find his ring, hoping he had just misplaced it. Marshall unpacked his entire suitcase and combed through the bedroom, office and living room. Still no luck. I went into our bathroom and there it was! I finally found it sitting beside an open jar of hair product. Marshall had obviously taken it off to put in hair product and never put it back on. Thank god we found it! Whew! He said he wanted his head examined. He breathed a huge sigh of relief to know it was no longer missing. I'm pretty sure nothing would have eased his mind if we hadn't been able to find his ring. Not even our traditional Christmas Eve gifts!

Fortunately, not all was lost so we both were able to enjoy Christmas Eve at home. Ever since I was a little girl, my family has had the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. That gift is always pajamas. As a child it was always Christmas themed pajamas, but now it is just any pajamas. Since Marshall has been complaining about how cold I keep it in the house now that I'm pregnant, I got him flannel pajama pants, fuzzy socks, a long sleeved henley and some Christmas boxers. I was hoping it would help keep him warm until I went back to my normal temperament. This year since I was pregnant, Marshall instead gave a robe from Victoria Secrets that I had wanted. I was thinking I wouldn't be able to tie it right now, but surprisingly I was able to. I guess I'm not as big as some people want to think I am!


We then watched Love Actually to get in the Christmas spirit and afterwards put on Total Recall for the second time. Again, we didn't make it through the movie and wound up both falling asleep on the couch.