"I think that I have everything ready for the traditional smorgasbord, Henrik. Well, except for the lutfisk. I read up on how to make that, and realized that not only did I not have time to properly make the dish, but it sounding far too unappetizing for me to even think about putting it together. I am so sorry if it's something that you had your heart set on!"

He glanced over at Roxanna, feeling a mischievous smile tug at the corners of his lips, as he nodded, trying to appear disconsolate as he did so. "You can't call it a real Swedish Christmas without lutfisk, my dear. Whatever were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I want to spend as much time as I can with you whilst you're here, and that I would lose some of those precious minutes to the loo were I to even think about eating something like that. I know, you probably were raised on it, but I was not!" She sashayed over to his side, bending down to press her lips to his cheek. "But I did saffron buns and ginger snaps!"

"You truly know the way to a man's heart," he said as he turned his head and kissed her gently.

"I'm trying to learn the way to your heart, Henrik. No one else matters to me. Even if I did use David as my guinea pig until he went home for the holidays. It only took four tries until I had the saffron buns down perfectly."

He nodded as he pushed away from the table and stood, hooking his arm around her waist as he looked at the feast laid out on the counter. She truly had gone to so much trouble to create a little piece of his childhood for him, and it was in that moment he knew that she was the one, that it had always been her, he just hadn't realized it yet. "I haven't had saffransbullar in more than a decade," he said lowly as he took grabbed one of the plates and began to fill it with the delicacies that Roxanna had somehow managed to learn how to make along with working on her research and classes.

"I hope that you like mine." He looked over and saw that her face had started to close off, as if she was too nervous about the gift she had prepared for him to truly think she had done something overwhelmingly thoughtful and full of love. Setting his plate back on the counter, Henrik turned to her and cupped her face with his hands, staring deep into her eyes. "Henrik?"

"I wouldn't care of they were a little burnt, or had too much salt or the dough had been overkneaded. You made them, you made this entire feast, and it took some of your precious time to do, so I am going to eat and enjoy because this is from you, from your heart, and I love that about you most of all." He felt a few tears start to wet his thumbs, and he sighed before leaning in and kissing her deeply. "This is going to make my own gift seem paltry in comparison, you know."

"Hush. You travelled three thousand miles to spend Christmas with me. You gave up on so many days off so that we could have a proper holiday together, I don't think that's paltry at all." She laughed a little before leaning in and kissing him. "I love you, my sweet bean pole of a man." Another soft kiss and then she was pulling away to look into his eyes. "How am I going to give you up on New Year's Day?"

"With the knowledge that we'll be together in six months? We've made it thus far, but the finish line is in sight. Again, isn't there a line in your Bible that tells you that with faith you can run and not grow weary?"

Another soft laugh left her lips as Roxanna shook her head. "That is so sacrilegious, Henrik! It's supposed to be those who wait upon the Lord will run and not grow weary."

"Oh," he replied drolly as he picked up his plate once more and started to fill it. "Well, I suppose since He didn't strike me down with lightning, He must have known my intent." Roxanna nodded as she started to fill up her own plate, taking just a small bit of pâté. "That's another acquired taste, darling."

"I figured as much as I made it. The smell was quite…different to what I'm accustomed to. Though I am looking forward to the ham!" He chuckled as they finished filling their plates and headed into the living room. "Oh! I do have one more surprise for you! This one was with David's help, too, because I was so busy with research and finding the recipes, so he had to research this for me."

"You are leading him around by his nose, Roxy!"

"No, he wanted to help me! He's a sweetheart, Henrik, and I may have played Emma for a day, because we have this really sweet woman in one of our seminars, and she's been giving him the same looks I was giving you so long before you noticed me. I hope that things don't go wrong, but I really want him to be as happy with someone as we are." She plopped down onto the sofa and turned on the small television. "And I know, you're supposed to watch Disney movies, but…I've never been that interested in them? So I thought we could just watch PBS, since that always seems to have something interesting…"

"You never finished telling me what my other surprise is, Roxanna."

She smiled with pursed lips as she raised her eyebrows, and Henrik shook his head a little as he waited for her to tell him. "Fine, we're not staying up late tonight, because the service starts at five in the bloody morning, and we have an hour's drive on top of that, but, I found a Swedish Baptist church that still holds a Julotta service! Well, there was another in Michigan, too, but there was no way we were travelling that far!"

"I've never attended a Julotta service, actually. Mum could never convince Dad to take us, not when there was always a long drive to reach family later on in the day."

"Oh, then we'll get to make new memories of something! This is going to be amazing, since usually my family attended a Christmas Day service." She leaned over and kissed his cheek before digging into her food. "I hope you don't mind me basically dragging you along to this. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to do something you don't really want to do."

He could see that her eyes were turning sad, and he knew that he had to salvage the situation before she started crying once more. "Compromise is the hallmark of the best relationships. And since Christmas is the time of miracles, I suppose that it wouldn't be too much for me to step foot inside a church."

"And sing?" Her eager smile caused him to relax a little as he nodded. "Good! Now, let's focus on the movie, and as soon as we've finished eating, we can open presents! I've had my eye on that large box ever since it showed up under the tree sometime between last night and this morning." Henrik nodded, knowing that she would love what was in that box, since he had worked with her father to get everything about it just right. And suddenly, he couldn't wait to see her face when she opened it.