The fol­low­ing is an excerpt of my story “When the Time is Right, You’ll Know” as it appears in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Gift of Christ­mas” and “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christ­mas”. Thank you for read­ing and I hope you enjoy it!

As the hol­i­day sea­son of 2003 approached, my girl­friend Kerri couldn’t stop yam­mer­ing on about Christ­mases at home. I remem­ber becom­ing increas­ingly annoyed with her sto­ries, and although she never noticed, I’m sure she would’ve understood.

On Novem­ber 30, 1995, years before she met me, my father and half-brother left this world. And with my fam­ily tragedy being so close to Decem­ber, it really cast a dark cloud over the hol­i­days for me. I also always spent them alone until now. This Christ­mas how­ever, I had Kerri and her joy for the hol­i­days, her love of her fam­ily, and her giddy excite­ment over what had become just Decem­ber 25th to me.

Although I was depressed, I was still very much in love, and I didn’t want to ruin our first Christ­mas liv­ing together. That’s when I bought us two bus tick­ets from Bal­ti­more, Mary­land to Charleston, South Car­olina. Sure the Scrooge in me wanted to see just how great these Christ­mases at home were, but also Kerri couldn’t have been hap­pier, and I enjoyed mak­ing her happy. After all, this was the woman I planned to marry.

Speak­ing of mar­riage, we had been talk­ing of get­ting engaged for months, so I told her, “Maybe this Christ­mas I’ll talk to your father in per­son about mar­ry­ing you.”

She replied, “This is going to be the best Christ­mas ever!”

I was hop­ing she was right. Because unbe­knownst to her, I had already bought an engage­ment ring.

It was now two days before Christ­mas and that 600-mile ride on the bus was every­thing you’d expect it to be: cramped, stuffy, long, and kind of mis­er­able. For me, you can add “nerve-wracking” to that list, as my mind was focused on “the talk,” then the pro­posal if “the talk” went well, and the fact that the ring was in my duf­fel bag under the bus. You had bet­ter believe that when­ever pas­sen­gers were begin­ning or end­ing their bus trip dur­ing our eighteen-hour ride, and bags were com­ing on and off of the bus, I was pressed against that win­dow watch­ing like a hawk.

That night when we finally arrived in Charleston, and we pulled up to Kerri’s par­ents’ house, I saw bright, shiny Christ­mas lights and lit-up rein­deer. We walked inside and every­thing Kerri spoke of in her many sto­ries was there. And I tried to be as excited as Kerri, but after being on a bus since 5 AM, I was only inter­ested in one thing: sleep.

Christ­mas Eve was a blur of catch­ing up with Kerri’s fam­ily, call­ing her friends to let them know we were in town, and then vis­it­ing with some of those friends. Later that night, when Kerri and I were lying in bed, I told her that I thought that tomor­row morn­ing I would finally “talk to him.” She cud­dled up close, and while still clue­less about my plan, she sensed my ner­vous­ness and said, “It’ll be fine. I love you.”

On Christ­mas morn­ing I woke up before Kerri and made my way to the liv­ing room. Just as Kerri said last night, her father, an early riser, was awake. I took a seat on the couch and asked him to sit in his recliner. He smiled at me while doing so, which led me to believe that he already had a clue about what was about to hap­pen. Or maybe he found it humor­ous to see a twenty-five-year-old say to him, “Please, Sir. Sit.”

What­ever his rea­son, had he not smiled I don’t believe I would’ve found the courage to continue.

Of course you know how it ulti­mately turns out, but if you want to know exactly how it hap­pened, please pick up a copy of “Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Gift of Christ­mas” exclu­sively at Wal­mart, and “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christ­mas” exclu­sively at Barnes & Noble!