Our First Married Christmas

We had heard over and over again that our first married Christmas would be memorable. Little did we know what that meant. First let me begin by saying, Slim and I both had our best Christmases yet, despite the following stories...

Friday night, December 21st, 07.

Our dear friends Lauren and Billy invited us to the hockey game. Now, I am not a big Everblades fan, but I am a fan of the DeAngelis Diamond box. I never turn it down actually. (We have even seen WWE- gross, but exciting from the box). We had a great time, with great friends. Heather and Jared were there, Dupree and Mark, Brandon and Alaina, and of course Billy and Lauren. Santa was there, too!

When we arrived home from the game, I started to pack up the Christmas presents from underneath the Christmas tree. If you haven't seen our lovely tree, please scroll down, and view a previous post. Like I said in that post, our tree needed to be set up in the kitchen due to the size of it. It was beautiful and I loved it being in there. As I pulled the final present out from beneath the tree, something terrible happened. Without any hesitation the tree toppled over causing all the ornaments on the front of it to hit the tile floor. It sounded like a bomb had gone off in our home. Slim was using the bathroom when this happened, and all I could was yell for help. Pieces of glass ornaments were everywhere. My heart was sad. Some of my ornaments from childhood were broken and unable to be repaired. Two glass ornaments from the Joneses shattered and that hurt my heart. It was really awful.

After getting the tree cleaned up and rearranged, we headed to bed. At this point, it was about midnight and the next morning we were getting up early to go to my parents home. Slim and I slept in on Saturday until about 9, and then I hopped in the shower and he went outside to clean out the car so that it could be packed up to leave on our journey. When I got back in the room, all dressed and ready to go, Slim came in and asked me a very strange question...

Slim: "Did you have anything valuable in your car?"

Me: "No, why?"

Slim: (in a very calm tone) "Because my car was broken into last night and they stole all my gear. The cops are on the way-- we can't go anywhere until they get here and take care of the police report."

Yes, folks that is correct. My sweet Slim lost 4 guitars and 2 amplifiers that night. In the midst of the Christmas tree fiasco, we forgot to unload his gear, and it just so happened that someone broke into his car that night and stole it.

He lost

1 Taylor Acoustic 614-CE, which was the first guitar of our dear friend John DeAngelis.

1 Fender Stratocaster, which if you have ever seen him play- this is the gorgeous red guitar that he plays most often

2 Fender Telecasters

1 Fender Pro Series Concert Reverb 4x10 amplifier

1 Fender 65 Reissue delux Reverb 1x12 amplifier

Inside one of the amps there were 5 microphones, as well.

The damage was approximately $10,000. Right now the insurance company is saying that they will only reimburse $1,000 of that, but we are in a war with them, and hope that it is getting worked out.

Slim is doing really well with it all. I was much more emotional about it than he was. He has his moments, but knows that God is trying to teach him something big from all of this. Slim will be taking some time off from music in order to spend time learning what God wants from all of this. Pray for us as we press on to see what God is calling us to do.

So needless to say, this Christmas will always be remembered!