As told by Shauna Cates
“It was early Christmas day and our two children had gotten up early to see if Santa had come. Paul (my fiance) said, ‘Did santa bring you anything?’ I looked at him silly and said I don’t know. He replied with, ‘Well why don’t you look on or around the tree and see if he brought you anything.” So I get up and start looking on our tree. Well we buy a new Christmas ornament for every year we have been together and right there behind our 6th year together ornament–yes you read that right it took him six years and two kids to propose (lol)–was a ribbon with his great grandmother’s engagement ring. I pulled it off the tree and looked at him with a grin from ear to ear on my face and he said, ‘Marry me baby?’ I ran to him and jumped into his arms and replied yes! As he was holding me in his arms I started crying and so did he our oldest son who is three came up to us and put his arms around Paul’s legs and said, ‘We’re a family?’ We both replied ‘Yes son, we’re a family!” It was the best Christmas I ever had and needless to say by far the best present Santa has ever brought me.

As told by Rose Stidman
“David had mentioned the other day that he wanted to go out, just us, for dinner on Christmas Eve since he has to work Christmas night. I said okay and we decided to go after I got back from watching my niece sing in a children’s choir at her church. Earlier yesterday he asked me if I wanted to eat at Reston Town Center, I said no, I wanted to try a new restaurant in Leesburg, Firebirds, so we decided on there.

I ran off to my niece’s show, got back and we drove to the restaurant, him with the ring in the pocket of his jacket. Apparently David had a moment of panic just before we left though because I had put my hand on the jacket and he thought I would feel the box. Lucky for him, I didn’t.

We got there, were seated, enjoyed dinner and ordered a dessert to share. While we were waiting for the dessert to arrive, he dug into his jacket and said, “while we’re waiting…”, came around to my side of the table, put the box in front of me and opened it. At first I was slightly bewildered- I had kind of thought it may be coming but I didn’t want to get my hopes up and for a split second thought it was earrings. I think at one point I bent over and stared at the ring making sure I was seeing what I was seeing. David never actually said the words, but when you’ve been with someone for 4+ years, I guess you know what the question is when you see the bling in front of you. The table next to us gasped and stared at me expectantly, and shortly after I came to I made him put the ring on my finger. The nearby tables started clapping, the the table next to us insisted on taking a picture. A teenage girl caught sight of the activity, shrieked and started clapping. I think we made her night.

We told my family and his today, Christmas day, so it’s been a very eventful Christmas!”