Sunday, January 2, 2011

We're so tricky

So we lied.  We told everyone we were staying in Taiwan for Christmas then going to Bangkok for New Years.  We had lots of very good reasons why we needed to stay and couldn't come home this year.  And for awhile, those were true.  Then suddenly things changed and we bought plane tickets, rented a car, found a $200NT ($6US) santa suit and didn't tell anyone we were coming.  That last part was the hardest, but the pay off was awesome.

Jeremiah's mom and dad were first up on Christmas Eve, and dressed up in the santa suit Jeremiah was hard to recognize.  Even his mom had a hard time; as he stood there she stalled with the dragged out "oh you" desperately trying to figure out why a santa was standing in her walk-in closet with her.  It took a few seconds but she was soon asking "what are you doing here?!" and the tears were flowing.  His sister had a similar reaction with tears and hugs.

Jeremiah sneaking up to his parents house, and the reaction at his sister's house

Our next stop was Allison's family on Christmas day.  When Grandma opened the door to her house I announced "special delivery" and then had three sets of eyes - grandma, mom and aunt - staring at me in bewilderment.  What felt like a few minutes, but Jeremiah tells me was more like 20 seconds, nobody said anything.  I yanked off the beard and nobody missed a beat with the tears.  (Sadly there were no pictures of me in the santa suit, though a video of me running up the street with the santa pants [that I had pulled on over my jeans] falling off without me knowing would have been priceless.)


It will be hard to top this in years to come.

5 comments:

  1. haha the previous post makes much more sense now...maybe I'll steal this idea when I go back to Taiwan [:

    -Coco<3

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  2. We were TOTALLY surprised and so, so, so happy to have them here! Somehow, Jeremiah even emailed us his official flight information for their pretend 'trip' to Bangkok. And, of course, I mailed their Christmas package to Taiwan - though they insisted I wait until January since they would be gone on their trip. (How can a mom NOT send presents for their holiday?) Anyway, they really did trick us and we are certainly enjoying some unexpected time together! Mom

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  3. That will forever be way up on my list of special Christmas memories!!!

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  4. That is so sweet! What a wonderful Xmas surprise for your family!
    I've thought about showing up in California to surprise my parents, but they travel around so much that I'm afraid it'll end up with me camping forlornly on the front porch of the house while they are off taking a driving tour of the southwestern US or something.

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