If you have not heard about or seen this video on YouTube, do yourself a favor and take a few moments to not only view, but to read the blog. Quite an amazing story. And quite an amazing proposal. It is a marriage proposal via a movie trailer featuring two personalized Muppets.

As my good friend Chandra pointed out when she forwarded me the link, I like mushy things. I confess, I do. I embrace the mushy things in life. I believe embracing the mushy makes us better humans. Gives us bigger hearts. Enriches our souls.

And I’m a sucker for creative, endearing marriage proposals. Forget the ballpark, jumbo-tron crap. If I never see another non-creative man on bended knee either court side or on the court, it will be way too soon. Give me a break, fellas. That has been done to death. Not to mention, I go to games to watch the game. And besides, proposals are significant. These are important moments for both the asker and the asked or the proposer and the proposee. Or something like that. Any way, proposals are meant to be personal. Not part of the wave in a stadium of strangers.

But I guess I’m a little biased due to my own experience. It was  December 5th, a cold but clear Saturday evening following the Winterfest fireworks. We sat bundled in the car, sipping red wine from Christmas glasses, oohing and ahhing. The winter air seems to make the fireworks brighter, wider, slower. It was as if we were viewing them in slow motion, a beat or two behind the synchronized radio music. Beautiful. My love of (at the time) four years suggested instead of streaming into the traffic on Central and curving around the Mid-American Indian Center, we take a walk in the cold. View the Christmas lights in Riverside from across the river, just behind the tennis courts. We’ll take the wine.

Hand in hand we walked until we were directly beneath two giant evergreens. In between hung a brightly lit Christmas star. I’d seen these trees holding hands with the shining star every year as I circled through the park. They were amazing up close. I was so in awe, peering up to the tops of the waving trees that I’d failed to notice my man on one knee. In the patches of leftover snow. His breath hanging in the air, anticipating his next words. That was twelve years ago.

We both grew up in and near the Riverside area. Every year we attended the Winterfest fireworks. He knew how much I loved Christmas, after all my name by definition means “a child of Christmas.” And this was a new beginning. What better way to start than beneath the beacon of a familiar, shining Christmas star.

And every year we return. Sometimes we just park across the river and toast those big trees.

Do I love the Muppet proposal? Absolutely. Do I love the story behind the creation and implementation of the Muppet proposal? Without a doubt. But it will never hold a candle to my proposal. As it shouldn’t. Which is why I love the Muppet proposal. Because time was taken, thought was given, and it was personal. So personal. A story only to be shared. Afterward.