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Happy New Year, everybody! I'm going out of town for the night. Here's my happy end-of-2008 story:

It's been suggested that I'm hard to shop for, particularly when my primary hobbies are reading, tabletop gaming (which involves ... reading), and trying to learn to make useful things (which requires, as a repeated step, a whole lot of reading). So I try to offer some suggestions, once a specific complaint is offered about an upcoming present-giving occasion, of nifty items I'd really love and cannot easily provide myself. For example, one year what I really wanted was my car thoroughly cleaned. I'd scrubbed windows and dash, taken out all trash, but it still smelled vaguely of Ancient Dropped French Fry; and a professional detailer would've charged easily a third of the car's total value. (This was a VERY old car, long since become an organ donor for some enterprising young man trying to restore some conglomerate of parts to his own first vehicle. God, I loved that car.)

Anyway, after the Year of the Cleaning Request, I was firmly advised that subsequent gifts would not consist primarily of labor. So, this year, when given a hint that I'm difficult even when I *do* provide a list, I asked my guys for a brand-new futon mattress. I got specific about size and style, linked to some reasonable examples online, carried on at length about The Importance of Burchie-Proofing, and generally waxed non-nostalgic about sitting on a cushion that is actually older than my first marriage. Apparently they compared notes, did some brainstorming, discussed options, and decided to take me out one night about a week before Christmas and have me sit on several mattresses, so I could pick out the one I liked best. The guys split the cost, and wrassled it into the house, and Dearly Beloved helped me shove it into the freshly Scotchgarded cover while Darling #1 Husband persuaded all three cats to accept treat bribery in lieu of "helping" set things up.
This is a very nice futon again. I'm sitting on it now. Been sitting here two hours, and my patootie is not numb. Burchie has, apparently, no need to re-perfume it, nor has Mifune expressed any interest in trying to engrave the edges. Great present, and I don't at all mind that it was early.

Christmas morning, we opened presents in front of the futon, in the bright morning sun. We had some packages from extended family, and my presents for the guys, and their presents for each other; as I was making sure Skype was running in case my brother called from South America, and tossing out the holiday yarnball gifts to the feline trio, DB and D#1H suddenly looked at each other as if sharing the thought, "Wait, where is it?!"

Out loud, DB says to D#1H, "We need to get something from upstairs."
"Yes! We do," says D#1H to DB.
Vel'bol l'vith? think I, knowing that DB didn't wrap D#1H's present, and the RULE HAS BEEN CLEARLY STATED, that D#1H has to unwrap all other presents before getting THAT one, because that one is an Asus EeePC netbook, and once it is revealed all other Christmas gifts will cease to exist. Geeks, y'know. I bought him a super-comfy headset for his iPhone, and literally he has touched it once since he grasped his Asus -- that time was to remove it from inside his shirt, where I had stuffed it while cleaning up.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Off they've gone trooping upstairs, to do Powers only knows what. I discover my coffee sitting on the left-hand end table (where I'd left it! Astounding!), take a few sips, turn back to the laptop on my right and make sure Skype has not gone kablooey during loadup. Upstairs, bags are rustling, some sort of conversation is in progress that might be about Warhammer miniatures, and down here I check to make sure presents with individual names are on top of the stack; and, hey, where's my coffee?

Down the stairs they thump, stop in the foyer, and say to me, "We're ready." It's that voice that implies, "I solemnly swear that I am up to something." I turn and look, and they're standing next to each other with their hands folded behind their backs, still in sleeping pants, sleep-smudged hair, big grins worthy of a Foglio illustration ... and matching t-shirts.

Specifically, the third one down on this page.

I wish I'd had my camera. Hell, I wish I'd been thinking fast enough to swipe one of their phones and taken a picture. That matching set of grins, those supremely proud and snickery and delighted and delightful expressions across their entire body language, that sums up all the best things about my life.

There are a lot of worthwhile reasons to get married: love, security, stability, sympathy, support, hope. But I think it's even more precious to have a worthwhile reason for still being married; and of all the ones I could list, that one right there is the best. Fifteen years, and they're inventive, surprising, conspiratorily adorable nerds.
(And they go to all this trouble for me!)

---

They'd insist, if they knew I was telling this story, that I've got it wrong because it doesn't end there: the reason their hands were behind their backs was that they'd gotten a complementing -- not matching! -- shirt for me. We got a picture, afterward, of the three of us in these shirts, sitting on the new futon mattress in the sun, grinning our fool asses off; I really hope Darling #1 Husband emails the damn thing to me soon, because it's going to be printed on nice paper and included in next year's Christmas card mailings, and if it turned out well enough to blow up a little, it's getting framed and hung somewhere in this room.
I'm also wearing, dangling from a hairclip, an ornament from my Mom that says "Firstborn" in big letters, and slightly smaller underneath, "Mom's Favorite!" Probably it won't be legible in the card-sized photo, which is good since my little sister and brother are on that card-mailing list, but all in all these are quite probably the best Christmas presents ever. And Mom and Dad will get the joke when they see the photo!