Stories of Jeff Excell - Our First Christmas

The Christmas season split our budding love for a few weeks as I went up to my parents' house and Jeff stayed in Cedar. We texted during our time apart except for one day. Christmas.

Because on Christmas, Jeff chose to call instead of text. And then I knew we were getting serious. Because he called knowing we were in opposite parts of the state. He called with nothing more on his agenda than to talk. To wish me a merry Christmas. To be my boyfriend figure.

He probably didn't look at it that way, but of course that's how I analyzed the situation.

I saw the incoming call and I ran up to my room to soak up my potential boyfriend's Christmas wishes in peace. We talked briefly about how our day had been. Then he asked me what I was doing the rest of the night.

In all my girl-about-to-be-in-love stupidity, I responded I was going to watch the latest Batman movie.

Jeff seemed mildly impressed.

I had this weird thing when I was single where I thought guys would love me if they knew I enjoyed a good guy movie every once in a while. So I all too often made a scene of the few times I would watch these movies. In fact, I purposely brought action movies I don't really care about to college for the sole reason of peaking a guy's interest.

In hindsight it's really quite embarrassing, but at the time it made perfect sense.

I strategically told Jeff I was going to watch the Batman movie because I knew it was one of his favorites. What he didn't know is that I had tried to watch the movie several times before this Christmas and I had fallen asleep early into each attempt. Like previews early.

But I was determined to finish it this time because in my naive single girl mind, this was a critical part of my future with Jeff. He would never like me if I didn't like the same movies as him. How could he?

As I was patting myself on the back for slipping my movie choice of the night into our conversation, Jeff had already moved onto talking about our upcoming New Year's celebrations.

Jeff had just moved into his first apartment. He and his roommates were throwing the party of the night. He invited me down.

Wow. New Year's together? Was this my kiss moment? A New Year's kiss? Do I want that? This is probably because I told him I like watching Batman in my free time. I can't go to Cedar. I'll be down there for a whole extra week doing nothing. I don't get to see my family very much and I'll have to leave early. But my much anticipated kiss could be waiting for me in that house on New Year's...

I told him I'd have to think about it.

We somehow ended our conversation by talking about my life list. Which is a list I was forced to write my senior year of high school consisting of 100 things I want to accomplish in my life. Sadly, my highest aspirations were to pet a lion and paint my son's fingernails (watch out Eli). But it has been fun to see some of the unexpected ones -- like be in a movie -- actually happen.

As much as I hated writing my life list, I do love looking back at it. Which is why I encouraged Jeff to make one that Christmas break. He accepted my homework assignment.

We eventually hung up the phone.

Then I went to my computer to start watching the dreaded Batman. And I fell asleep 15 minutes into it.