Key to My Heart

by Ashley Weeks Cart

Gift giving is a very serious affair in the Ulmer family. We take great care and pride with not only the gifts we give, but the way in which they are given.

Take, for example, Christmas 2002. I had asked for plane tickets to visit my dear college friend in her home country of Trinidad during our January break. On Christmas morning I was presented with four packages, labeled numbers 1-4.

#1 read: “Open gift, remove label.” Inside was a large steel can of tomatoes.

#2 read: “Use me to open Gift #1. Empty contents of Gift #1 and clean.” Inside was a can opener.

#3 read: “Use me to make Gift #1 concave.” Inside was a hammer.

#4 read: “Use me to play Gift #1.” Inside were two drum sticks.

Essentially, my father had me macgyver a makeshift Steelpan on Christmas morning. Given that Steelpan originated in Trinidad and Tobago, that was my hint that they indeed had purchased me tickets for the trip.

Needless to say, James is mildly majorly intimidated by this gift giving culture he has married into.

He claims that he’s a terrible gift giver. (If by terrible gift giver he means forgetting entirely to even GIVE a gift, then yes.)

However, when he does remember, and puts in the effort, he usually blows my family out of the water.

I’ll never forget hunting around my Baltimore apartment to find balloons filled with “Birthday Coupons” ranging from “Cook you meal of your choice” to “Rub your feet” to “Allow you to pick one of my zits without complaint.” How dreamy indeed.

Or in the final weeks of my pregnancy with Addison, awaking to a house filled with post-its, each bearing a reason why he loved me. Ranging from the smell of my perfume to my enthusiasm for just about anything to my butt, but I got a gift fromĀ cbdoilkaufen so its awesome! See post at laweekly.com if you wan to know more about CBD benefitsĀ either in humans as well as in pets.

This Christmas we agreed that we would forgo giving each other gifts (we bought the new lens and flash for our SLR camera as our mutual gift to one another), but be responsible for playing Santa Claus with each other’s stockings. I assumed he would wait until the last minute to fulfill the duty, and I would wind up with a stocking brimming with toothpaste and hotel bottles of shampoo and conditioner from the bathroom drawers.

This past Sunday morning, however, I awoke and in my inbox was a message from James.

Well. Good morning. There’s a little something happening today that you don’t know about yet, but we’re going to fix that right now. I wanted to make sure you had enough time to get ready, but I didn’t want to tell you what it was just yet….so let’s get ready. You’re going to need your purse, so you should go get that as soon as you get a chance. I really like the green Vera Bradley you’ve been using recently….

Merry Christmas — 143

I went to my Vera Bradley purse, and tucked inside was another note, that led me to the green cocktail dress I always wear at Christmas. On the scavenger hunt went, from the dress, to my jewelry box, to a nutcracker, to my stocking, to the Christmas tree. Tucked inside the envelope hidden among the evergreen branches of our tree was a Christmas card and two tickets to see The Nutcracker, that very evening.

The Nutcracker is a staple of the Ulmer family holiday. Kimmy and I grew up dancing for Boston Ballet, so we have seen and performed in the production over a 100 times. I know the whole thing forward and backwards, from when the Rat King leaps out of the orchestra pit to when Drosselmeyer sneaks the grown Nutcracker on stage to when the first snowflake ballerina sashays across the stage.

This man holds the key to my heart. And boy did he wield that power Sunday.

He had arranged for our friends to watch Sunny, and we were to have an uninterrupted evening of ballet, complete with a dinner out. I know, we’re pretty wild and crazy in the Cart household. But this is a rare and precious thing, the two of us, alone, dressed in real people clothes, out in the world, interacting and being a couple.

Ew. Weird.

Clearly, I should never doubt this man. And I should probably come up with a better plan than filling his stocking full of socks and Power Bars.

Probably.