My favorite Christmas love story: My mom and dad

Her + Him = ME! 

Imagine your fiancé going off to war and then getting a call from the Red Cross about him having a violent wound. 

This was the second time that he'd been injured in this war zone. Fear. Wondering if your future together will happen. 

He comes home in December and you get married in a small house in the country on Christmas Eve. 

Nearly 50 years later, you two are still together. This is the story of my parents. 

My mother met the man of her dreams when his cousin asked him to give him a ride to her house. The cousin was sweet on my mother, but when she and my dad locked eyes, that was all she wrote. 

My grandmother warned his cousin about bringing a handsome man along when he came courting, as they called it back in the day. 

See, my dad's cousin didn't have a car and in my dad's cousin's mind he thought my aunt would've been a better match for my daddy. The problem was, his heart was taken by my mother's smile. 

So the next time my daddy's car pulled into my grandmother's drive way, he was alone and there to see his future wife. 

Christmas has always been about love to me. Been about watching my parents celebrate years of togetherness. And as my sister, my brother and I got older, it became about celebrating their love and the love of their grandchildren. 

And a Charlie Brown looking Christmas tree that my dad used to complain about being in the way of TV. A man has to watch football after all. 

It takes a hell of a woman to have her wedding day on the eve of one of the most celebrated holidays ever. Well, what can I say, my mama is one of a kind! 

Happy Holidays!