Holly Martin - One Hundred Christmas Proposals

He picked up the phone, effectively ending that conversation, but he kissed my forehead to soften the blow.

I went to stand up, but he caught my hand, kissing my ring finger in the exact place my wedding ring would be. I smiled. He was right, we had been ridiculously busy. There was nothing to worry about. No one would propose one hundred times without actually wanting to get married.

‘We’re leaving in five minutes,’ he whispered, covering the mouthpiece of the phone.

I nodded. Finn and Molly’s proposal was going to be a fun one – and was going to be our seventy-fourth December one so far. Most of the others were happening on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve but we had the details for them so even if we couldn’t be there for the proposal itself we had asked for videos or photos to be sent in and we would still put them on the blog. The bonus reward of free champagne, flowers and chocolates with every December proposal booked with us was encouraging a lot of people to be a part of it.

I grabbed my coat, wrapped a gold fluffy scarf round my neck and pulled on Harry’s favourite gold and red toadstool hat. He grinned at me when he saw me wearing it.

‘Yep, I can send you over the basic package now, if you give me your credit card details…’

I left him to it and wandered downstairs to our living room. Ours. I smiled at the haphazard Christmas tree, teetering at a very wonky angle as the sheer size of it forced the top three feet to be bent across the ceiling. It was decorated with hundreds or probably thousands of baubles, icicles, funny Santa ornaments, snowmen, angels, candy canes and it was rammed full of fairy lights and tinsel. There was quite simply no part of the tree left untouched.

Harry was so excited about this Christmas, our first together. Christmases in his past hadn’t really been that fun. In the short few years he had spent with his mum after his dad had left, there had been no Christmas at all. His mum had drifted along in a drunken stupor for much of those four years and she had barely bothered to care for him and his sister, let alone buy presents or decorate the house. Even before his dad left, he had no recollection of a tree with presents stacked neatly underneath, or stockings filled with oddly shaped lumps and bumps. His years in and out of foster care hadn’t been that much better. They had at least celebrated Christmas, in a sort of fashion, but with several unwanted angry children in whichever house was unlucky enough to have them over Christmas it never made for a pleasant environment. After that, Harry had spent several years celebrating Christmas in the most unconventional ways possible – gambling in casinos in Vegas, at a barbeque on Bondi Beach, hiking up Snowdon, anything to avoid the happy, rose-tinted, sparkly traditional Christmases that happened inside the homes of thousands of British families.

We had at least spent the last few years together, but we had normally gone out to a pub for lunch and then met up with friends later in the evening.

This year Harry was determined to do it right and every surface, every wall, every picture had been draped with Christmas decorations. Garlands of holly, ivy and other leaves and berries curled around doorways, the fireplace and up the stairs. It looked like Santa’s grotto, albeit a Santa that had collected decorations from all over the world for the last hundred years and emptied his entire collection inside our house.

But the thing that made me smile the most was the two stockings hanging from the fireplace, side by side.

‘It’s too much isn’t it,’ Harry said, wrapping his arms round my waist as he snuggled into my neck.

‘No, it’s gaudy and it clashes and I love it, but you do realise that the fake snow you’ve sprayed on the windows will never come off.’

I felt him smile against my neck. ‘I don’t care. I may even leave the Christmas decorations up all year round, I love it all so much. Would you be ok with that?’

‘If it makes you happy then yes.’

He slid his hand down my arms and took my hand, pulling me towards the door. ‘Come on, we’re going to be late.’

*

Proposer’s Blog

Christmas Proposal 74: December 21 st. Finn and Molly’s Proposal. Location: Leicester Square

Finn and Molly have been together for four years, eight months and three weeks, or so Finn tells me. It would have been five years but Molly stubbornly refused his advances for the first four months. Molly wanted to concentrate on her studies, Finn wanted to concentrate on her.

They first met when they signed up to do some charity carol singing for their university, with the money raised going to the local kids’ hospice. Molly sung loud and proud and every note wildly out of tune. Finn fell in love with her there and then.

Five years later he wanted to celebrate their love by proposing to her in the exact spot where his heart had been irrevocably changed forever.

Finn stood with his arm round Molly’s shoulders as they watched a small group of carol singers singing Away in a Manger but as they finished the second verse, the music changed, the carol singers ripped off their Santa hats and our little proposal began. The carol singers donned ’80s mullets and soon were singing along to Prince’s ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.’

I could see Molly laughing at the way the carol singing had suddenly turned but it was clear that she had no idea this was all for her.

More dancers ran to join in, falling in seamlessly with the dance routine and she realised she was witnessing a flash mob, although at this stage I still don’t think she had any idea where it was going.

The music changed again, this time it was Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)’ with the dancers pulling on legwarmers and fingerless gloves, as more dancers ran in to join with the flash mob and the flawless dance routine.

As the song came to an end, Finn pulled off his jacket and passed it to Molly to hold, which was obviously an odd thing to do considering how cold it was – but as the music changed again to Bruno Mars’ ‘Marry You’, he ran in and joined in with the dance himself, leading his backing singers and dancers to a full scale, hundred person strong crescendo with them all on one knee in front of Molly at the end.

Molly was crying so much by this point we all had to wait almost two minutes to get any kind of answer from her. You could have heard a pin drop. Even the traffic seemed to come to a stop as we all waited with bated breath for the answer which could ruin us all.

Fortunately, when she stopped sobbing her answer was a resounding yes.

The crowd cheered and Suzie and I and probably Finn breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I don’t know what I’ll do if any of our proposals ever end in a no.

Suzie was in tears as Finn and Molly hugged and cried, so I think the proposal was a big success as far as she was concerned. Though to be fair, she’s been in tears for the last three proposals too.

*

‘I’m going out,’ Harry called. ‘I’m meeting Badger for some man time.’

‘That’s fine, give him a big hug from me.’

‘I will do.’ Harry walked into the front room fastening his coat. ‘What you doing?’

‘I’m probably just going to have a bath and read my book.’

‘Well I probably won’t be too long, if you hold off on the bath for an hour we could have one together.’

‘That sounds good.’ I reached up to kiss him as he leaned over the back of the sofa. He lingered over the kiss much longer than was necessary for a goodbye kiss and I couldn’t help smiling as he kissed me as if he wasn’t going to see me for months. Eventually he pulled away.