We are a family of surprises. I love surprises.
My family started giving surprises when Stacey and David were 12 & 9. We decided to surprise them with a weekend away. Mike & I had been away for a weekend alone, rekindling our romance and were so impressed with the hotel we decided we had to go there again, but this time take the children. We didn’t let on a thing about our plan. We surreptitiously wrote notes to their teachers saying they would be missing a few hours of school on Friday. Friday morning we all got up normal time and pretended nothing was any different from any other Friday. We made their lunches, ensured they had their homework and dropped them at school. Then a couple of hours later after packing the car, we pitched up at their school and went to their classrooms and in front of the whole class announced we were taking them away for the weekend! Of course they asked where they were going, but we said, “it’s a surprise!” We went from the school to the hotel. The children were astounded. They could not believe that we would do that. On arriving at the hotel, they were enjoying their room and looking at all the amenities when they realized school was only ending at that time! We had a wonderful weekend away and it began a trend of annual surprises that moved with their age. Eventually, we told them the weekend of the surprise but not where we were going. Stace and David will never forget that first surprise weekend away and it won’t surprise me if they do the same with their children.
Mike is a great one for surprising me. He knows I love it so much. One year shortly before my birthday he noticed I needed a new watch. So about 2 weeks before I was due to blow out my candles, he arrived home with a really inexpensive, from-the-market, mass produced (hey I’m trying not to say “cheap”) watch. I was thrilled to have a watch again and thanked him.
When my birthday arrived, Mike told me I would get my gift later in the day. I knew it was going to be a new bed. We had bought our bed second hand 10 years before. It was time for a replacement and I just knew it was going to be a birthday gift. So I wasn’t surprised that I had nothing waiting for me in the morning. I went off to work and half way through the morning, Mike arrived at the radio station with a bunch of red roses and a smartly wrapped box. My, my, my! Let me tell you. He won so many points on that day. To have your husband arrive at the office with red roses is just enough to turn every lady in the office green. I really didn’t know what to expect when I opened the gift and sure enough, there was a beautiful watch!
Birthday surprises are one thing, but a real surprise is when it’s entirely unexpected. Ten years passed since that watch arrived and it had worn a bit thin. The strap needed to be replaced & it had finally stopped working. Not so long ago just before Father’s Day, Mike had taken the day off. I came home and he made me coffee (he’s so good like that!) and we went to sit on the balcony and enjoy the sunny weather. No sooner had we sat down than he jumped up and said “I have something for you”. He went to his cupboard and bought out a beautifully wrapped gift. I didn’t know what to expect, but on opening it, there was a brand new watch. “An unexpected gift at an unexpected time” said Forrest Gump. Thank you. It worked. I sat on the balcony wallowing not only in the sunshine, but also in the fuzzy feeling of family love. Mike does not like surprises but I have had a chance to get him one or two completely unexpected gifts that he really enjoyed.
The last surprise I want to tell you about in the hope that you’ll really get the idea that this works well is the one over our wedding anniversary a few years ago. Mike and I married on 9th August which about 8 years after we married became the Women’s Day Holiday. We decided to go away for the weekend. I left it entirely for Mike to plan, so all I knew was that he was picking me up from work on Friday after 10am. Well he did a sterling job in giving me a humdinger of a surprise. He arrived at my office 24 hours ahead of schedule with everything arranged from house-sitters to who would take my car home. I was a little amazed that he had the children with him as well. Anyway off we went to the resort for 4 amazing nights of relaxation. I was amused because as he had decided to bring the children, he had taken Stacey into his confidence and the two of them had gone into cahoots in the planning. David and I knew NOTHING of it. When we arrived at the hotel, the children were shown to their room. Mike and I had the 2nd best room in the hotel and I soon found out why. To get to the children’s room we went out our room, along a passage, through a little lounge, up a passage, round the corner, through a door, along another passage, past the stair way, turned right and their room was the 2nd door on the right! It was MILES away. It was a weekend we’ll never forget, especially the room service bill the children ran up!
Go on, make your marriage work, arrange a surprise for the love of your life.
Ephesians 5:2
“Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂