Christmas Gift for Mom | how the Nowacki boys won the holidays

Jan 7

Written By Abbie

Back in June of 2019 Andy came to me on the sly, quietly murmuring out of one side of his mouth, “I want to talk to you about getting photos of the boys for Sara for Christmas.”

Instinctively, I looked at my watch, as if my watch would remind me that it was still summer. (It did!)

This is a man with a plan, that’s for sure.

Also, his boys would both be headed off to college in August, so really, he really did have to have a plan.

So we set up a time and date at the end of July, met at a park and they even snuck Joey the dog out of the house!

Now, what you may not know is that Sara is someone I see at least weekly, we talk on a regular basis and I’m really bad at poker.

Somehow, over the next six months I held it together and didn’t break my vow of secrecy.

Even when she called me THE VERY NEXT WEEK for headshots for her oldest. When they showed up at the studio, we had to pretend to meet for the first time! This was the definition of torture for me. But somehow we made it work and didn’t let on that we already had met. Somehow.

Months later, Sara and I were sitting next to each other at a networking lunch when all my devices simultaneously screamed, “HEY! SARA’S HUSBAND IS TEXTING YOU!” I truly thought that was it. Apple was going to singlehandedly ruin a surprise six months in the making.

By the grace of speed and fear, I hid the notifications and Sara never saw a thing.

Finally, December rolled around.

Days before Christmas, Sara texted me thanking me for the photos.

I was so confused - it wasn’t Christmas yet. Just in case, I played dumb…

So there you go - the Christmas cat is out of the stocking! Merry Christmas Sara! Your boys - all of them - love you so VERY much. (Joey says he woofs you very much.)