Sunday: December 25, 2011 9:14 AM

I finish making breakfast and realize that Randy is still upstairs, possibly sleeping. I make plates for both of us. I then decide to grab my phone to call Randy instead of going upstairs to get him. I call him.

Randy: "Hey, babe. What's up?"

Me: "Well, it's Christmas morning. I made breakfast, and you aren't down here to enjoy it with me."

Randy: "Oh. I can smell it. I'm sorry. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes."

Me: "Did I wake you up? You sound like you just woke up."

Randy: "I woke up right before you called, so you didn't technically wake me up. I think it may have been the smell of the food. I'm going to end the call now. I'm about to come downstairs."

Me: "Okay."

The call ends. Randy arrives downstairs as I sit at the dining table.

"Merry Christmas." Randy says as he walks over to his seat.

I smile as he sits down. "Merry Christmas, Randy."

Randy kisses me. "You've got a nice setup going on here. The food, the decorations, the candles."

"Yeah, you were sleeping, so I went to town with the setup, even though it was just going to be us."

"Well," Randy says as we start eating. "I appreciate all of it, especially the food."

"That's good. I really tried."

"You did fantastic. Just like all the dancing we did at the masquerade ball the other night. You absolutely nailed it."

"That's because I had a great dancing partner."

"Why thank you. I hope you're enjoying Christmas so far."

"I am. I just wanted to spend it with you."

Randy smiles as he grabs our dishes. "Well, I'm glad to give you that. I'm going to clean up."

I nod. "Alright."

Randy cleans the dishes up. I smile as I watch him.

"I see you watching me, Rissa." Randy comments as he is rinsing food off of the plates.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Randy." I sarcastically reply.

"Mhmm. Sure, Rissa."

I get up from the table and walk over to Randy. "I love you so much. Aren't you lucky?"

Randy glanced at me with a smile on his face. "I'm very lucky."

I wrapped my arms around him from behind. "I'm lucky too. You're amazing."

Randy finishes the dishes and turns the water off. "So are you. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

Randy turns around and kisses me. "This is our first Christmas married. How do you feel?"

I smile as I kiss him back. "It feels good."

"That's good to know. I feel really good about this too."

"You should. We are happily married, and the future is looking bright."

Randy grins. "Yeah, you look amazing.. I'm just so happy I get to spend today with you."

"I'm happy about it too. Hopefully, we can spend all the holidays together."

"I'm sure we will."

"Do you want to go ahead and open our gifts from each other and our stockings?"

"Sure, we can do that before the Skype call."

"Okay, let's do that then."

Randy and I walk into the living room.

"Well…" Randy says. "Most of these are our gifts for other people. So we won't be able to take too long with this."

"Do the stockings first." I tell Randy.

Randy gets the stockings down and hands me mine. "Here you go."

"Thank you."

"Do you want to go first or me?"

"Let's just go through them at the same time."

"Alright. That works for me."

We both go through our stockings and laugh as we both realize we filled each other's stockings with candy that each of us respectfully likes.

Randy smiles. "This is the most us kind of thing we could've done."

I nod. "I agree. It's the most us kind of thing."

"Looks like we'll be eating candy for a while."

I laugh. "It looks like it. Look at you, making me cheat on my diet."

"Rissa, you don't even need to diet."

"I still try to eat healthy, Randal."

"I know that. Let's grab our gifts for each other to do now."

"Alright."

We both head over to the Christmas tree to get our gifts for each other. I grab my gift for Randy as he grabs his gift for me. We sit back down and hand each other our gifts.

"Are we doing this at the same time too or not?" Randy asks.

"This would probably be better to do one at a time." I reply.

"Okay. You go first, Rissa."

"Alright." I start opening my Christmas gift from Randy.

I open the gift and realize that it's a CD. I have no indication of what songs are on it. All I can see is that the front says forever and always on it."

I look at Randy. "Do I have to guess the songs?"

Randy smiles. "I had that CD custom made just for you. You can put it in the car or leave it in here for us to listen to or something. As for the songs, let's just say that each and every song on there has significance to the two of us. Every single one."

I hug him as my eyes start to water. "Thank you."

Randy hugs me back. "I'm so glad you like it."

"Like it? Randy, I love it."

"That's even better."

"Open your gift now."

Randy starts opening his gift from me. "Why do you always wrap gifts so thoroughly?"

I shrug. "I'm just a thorough person, Randy."

Randy gets the gift open and opens the case. "You didn't."

"I did. Try not to break this one."

Randy admires the watch I got him. "I love it."

"Look at the inside."

Randy smiles. "You got it engraved. Forever and always."

I nod. "Take good care of it."

"I will. Thank you, Rissa."

"Absolutely. I think we both did pretty good with our gift choices for each other this year."

"We did. Am I allowed to eat some of the sugar cookies that you baked last night while we wait on the others to be ready for the Skype call?"

"Go ahead. Actually, I'm going to eat some too."

"Let's do it."

Randy and I look at each other as the Skype call starts. Everyone else appears on the screen.

"Umm…" John says. "Merry Christmas, everyone. What's up?"

"Merry Christmas." Everyone else says.

"So…" Ted starts. "Everyone having a good time today?"

Everyone nods.

"Good."

"I'm going to take charge here." Chelle says. "Randy, Rissa, as we all know, every couple got the other couples a gift. Open one of yours. Preferably the one from me and John."

Randy passes me a gift. "It's this one."

We work together to open the gift. It's a first Christmas married ornament for our tree.

I smile. "Thank you. Randy, why did we never buy one of these?"

Randy shrugs. "I have no idea. Thanks though, Chelle and John. Someone else open up a gift now."

"We'll go." Ryse says. "This is from Eve and Cody."

Ryse and Ted open their gift. It's matching coffee mugs.

"Thank you." Both Ryse and Ted say.

Eve and Cody, who are surprisingly enough together, go next and open their gift from Ryse and Ted. It's a coffee maker.

Eve and Cody both smile at each other. Randy and I exchange a look.

Chelle grins. "Our turn. This one is from Rissa and Randy."

Chelle and John opened the gift from me and Randy, which was an ice cream maker.

"This is so cool!" Chelle exclaimed.

"Thanks." John says.

"Absolutely." I reply as I smile and enjoy this time to celebrate Christmas.