Advent and Christmas

Just finished ordering the Build a Bear items and Twilight Barbies for my best friend Dorothy's daughter Rachel. Dorothy allows us to pretend that we are really Rachel's parents, so we can spoil her as much as we feel necessary. We ignore Dorothy on how much to spend, and specifically look for the "Dorothy is gong to kill us gift" Usually the theme for the DIGTKUG is "A Christmas Story", to which we introduced her in 2003 the year we were married, but this year it revolves around the movie Wolverine. Rachel has a huge crush on Hugh Jackman, and it is our duty to see that she receives something appropriate from Santa, something that is noisy. In 2007 when we were in ALbany, the DIGTKUG was the RAlphie doll from the movie, and it spoke several of the more memorable sayings from the movie. Geoff, needless to say also received the doll, as he and Rachel LOVE A Christmas Story and can quote it ad nauseam. It is banned in our home from Candlemas until 13 November of every year. In 2006, it was an ALF stuffed toy from eBay. She can quote ALF also.

Rachel is a beautiful 20 year woman who was born with some developmental disabilities as well as numerous health problems, the latter of which she has thankfully mostly overcome. She is simply a joy to be around and we love spoiling her.

When Geoff and I first became engaged, Dorothy was the first person told and the first member of the bridal party, as was Rachel. She immediately transformed into PQ1, which is code for Plotting Queen 1, and what a great Matron of Honor she was. Thankfully she insisted that I was not having a bachelorette party- I almost kissed her feet in gratitude. She and Geoff plotted behind my back for 15 months about the bridal shower, and all other things by the way, but planing a wedding never went smoother. She helped me when the girl who was supposed to do the hair for the bridal party dropped out two months before- she went to her salon and talked them into opening on their day off to accomodate a bride who was not even a customer at the time. Everything went smoothly, and she was simply a rock. My shower was great.

Another bridesmaid, Lori Gillon was also great- she knew that Geoff and I were meant to be from the start, when I had the worst case of nerves on our first date, and she helped me to fix that. Without her, their would be no Geoff and Agnes.

To this day, Dorothy is the big sister I never had, and I still call her PQ1 (Yes, I am PQ2)

While we won't see Dorothy, Chris her husband or Rachel until the summer, Christmas is never the same without them. So, we use that as our excuse to "spoil" Rachel. Being allowed to do so is the greatest Christmas gift.