Hey Paul, what a nice fun-filled christmas.

Lelia


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ariel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: MOST MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS


> I guess I've got to make a contribution to this thread since I started it.
> Smile.
>
> I've got a lot of strange memories, hurtful and happy, as most of you do.
> But the most memorable Christmas I have had was 10 years ago today.  I had
> just met a woman long-distance through circumstances that seemed they had
to
> be from the LORD and through mutual friends.  I was in New Jersey and she
> was here in South Carolina where I was due to move with my job.  We
traveled
> back and forth for a few months since being introduced over the phone and
> her parents invited me to come down for Christmas and spend it with them
and
> her in their home here in Columbia, so we'd be chaperoned.  As well as you
> can chaperone a lion and a redhead, anyway.
>
> It was memorable for many reasons.  We were both already crazy about each
> other (and in general as we would find out).  Not only was she a
Christian,
> her father a chaplain with many mutual friends, but she was also the most
> beautiful woman I have ever seen.  It was also memorable for learning the
> different culture here from up in Yankee Land which was an education in
> itself.
>
> Even just being able to get away from the unhealthy family atmosphere I
> couldn't escape from in New Jersey would have been enough, being empowered
> to say "I have a life elsewhere, someone who really wants to be with me,
and
> I with them." alone would have made it memorable.  And everything else
just
> made it more special.  I finally felt as if I had the family I had always
> wanted, the parental figures, both mother and father, and was falling in
> love not only with my sweetie but with her parents and her extended family
> (brother and his wife and little son).  There was the trip to a Christmas
> play in a church which seemed almost blasphemous with it's "Holly the Holy
> Spirit" and a mannequin that peeked out of the balcony like a wooden
Indian
> and was supposed to be JESUS.  An Italian guy and his girlfriend kept
> laughing and carrying on so much that the whole congregation seemed ready
to
> kill them.  But they couldn't touch us because we were in church.  Smile.
> And there was the Riverbanks Zoo here in Columbia where they form
Christmas
> lights into the shape of animals.  Life-size elephants, lions, etc. all
done
> in colorful 3D Christmas lights.  Strange but fascinating.  I didn't have
my
> car so her parents were driving us around as our chauffeurs, all of us
> singing Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs, which made it all the
> more bizarre with more much-needed chaperoning since the girl couldn't
keep
> her hands off of me.  Smile.
>
> I even brought snow down with me (which my sweetie's mother didn't seem to
> appreciate), the first time it snowed down here in years I think.  There
> were rough moments that should have warned me, and the relationship
> eventually fell apart a few months later.  But for those few days at
> Christmas I experienced every joy a man could experience at Christmas,
with
> other Christians, in love, and I'll always be grateful for it.
>
> Paul
>