The Newlywed Game

As the Christmas season begins, so do the parties, the get-togethers, and the festivities. Last night was the first of many parties that Griff and I will attend and this year it seems a little different being newlyweds.

As the games commenced at Griff's squadron Christmas party last night, we enjoyed watching party-goers scramble for items on a scavenger hunt list and watched the real Christmas spirit come out in everyone as the fights ensued for the last remaining seat in the lineup. And then they announced that we were going to play the Newlywed Game.

It was like slow motion watching the heads turn to the table in the back where Griff and I were seated. Of course everyone knew that we we had just gotten married. Some people in the room were invited to nuptials, while others were quietly envying our tans fresh from Hawaii (sorry, I had to put it out there). But needless to say no matter how many shades of red our faces turned, Griff and I weren't getting out of the game.

Now I didn't mind playing the game so much. I only know a handful of people in the room and how embarrassing can the questions, thought up by the squadron commander, be anyway. We'll come back to that statement.

So as we went down the line of couples, the introductions began. "Hi, what's your name?...And your husband is?" Followed by the obvious question, "And how long have you been married for?"

10 years was the first answer...I thought that this was the newlywed game? But as we continued down the line the marriage times weren't getting any smaller. When the Colonel finally got to me and Griff my sheepish answer was 1 month..."1 month? Is this part of the honeymoon?" I thought to myself do we have any shot at winning this thing without embarrassing ourselves? Of course we did. It's me and Griff.

And let me tell you, we held our own. Now back to embarrassing questions. After being asked "What part on your body would your husband say has aged the most?" and dragging out the skeletons in the closet with "How many girlfriends did your husband have before marrying you?" (which we both answered correctly) I thought that Griff and I could handle anything. And we were in the lead too. And then the dreaded bonus question - "When and where would your husband say was your first date?"

Stumped. And we thought we had this one in the bag.

With the way that our long distance relationship worked out, every time we saw each other, there were always other people around. Friends or family, we tried to combined visits with as much as possible. So what were our answers? Mine was Christmas Eve dinner, 2008. His was Applebees the day after we first officially met, in August 2008. And we were the only ones to get that question wrong. Now that's embarrassing.

Needless to say, we lost. Although we came away from it with a nice bottle of wine. And when we got home that night, we discussed where and when our first official date was in case that were to ever happen again. After all, you can't get stuck in that predicament twice. And you never know...we could still be playing the newlywed game after 10 years of marriage.