Christmas Time Is Here: Academy Exclusives

Family Hot Cocoa Night

"Come on, Meanie." I tugged at Gabriel's hand. "I swear, this is my best idea for a date night ever. Let's go, we're going to be late and we have a lot to do today!"

He laughed before letting me move him right along out to the car. "Okay, Trouble. Are you ever going to tell me all about your plans for today?" He asked, checking his watch, noticing it was only one in the afternoon.

"No. I won the right to plan a date, pick my date and pay for everything fair and square. I programmed the directions into the GPS already, all you have to do is drive." I scowled at him and crossed my arms. "No fair asking questions."

"Hey, I'm thrilled that you picked me to go on your special date with you. Really." He bent his head and kissed me lightly before opening the car door for me. "I just wasn't sure what the rules were once it was just us and we were on our way."

"Okay, okay. I can see that point. But I prepared for everything." I said, giving him a smug look. "I even prepaid for EVERYTHING so you can't even attempt to pay for anything." I hopped in the car and had my seatbelt buckled before he even shut my door.

"Fine, fine." He grumbled before winking at me and heading around to his side of the car and getting in. "And off we go." He started the car and pushed the start button for the directions as we left the house for our date.

We had fun in the car, making fun of the GPS lady as she gave the directions. He followed the directions like a champ though, so it didn't take long before we were parking in the lot behind the ceramics studio that I'd selected to be the main fun part of our date. He tilted his head and looked at me, crystal blue eyes curious. "Are we throwing pottery or painting it?"

"It would be fun to throw pottery sometime." I said, sliding out of the car before he could try and open my door for me. "But I have a plan and we're going to be painting a whole lot of pottery today."

"I see how you are." He laughed, following me into the studio, clicking the locks and setting the alarm as we walked away. "You just picked me for my skills."

I laughed. "You're very skilled, Meanie." I batted my eyelashes at him. "I wanted every part of you to be present today. The trick will be if you agree with what I have envisioned for this project and if you can follow through." I teased.

"I promise I'll follow your lead." He said, raising his hand as he made the promise.

"Okay good." I grinned as I checked us in at the front counter.

I'd made arrangements with the studio to allow us to paint a set of ten hot cocoa mugs. We were going to personalize each of them to fit a member of the family by using their favorite colors. I wanted to be more elaborate with my designs but to be honest, I'd been told painting would be a little temperamental if I was attempting to use techniques that were more suited to decorating cookies but they said I could try. We would attempt some more detailed tricks on the first few mugs and decide if we wanted to spend the time on the techniques before moving on to the other mugs.

Because we were not going to paint anything on the inside of the mugs, the studio had reassured me that they had a quick dry method that would seal and protect the paint job in a quicker time so that we could have the mugs at the end of business today. So we would spend our time right now, getting to work on the mugs... pop over to the café across the way to have what would amount to a high tea before we collected the mugs and headed home.

What I hadn't exactly said to Gabriel is that my choice of date to finish off our date this afternoon was a mandatory family hot cocoa and movie night where we'd dress in matching pajamas that I'd picked up while shopping with Jessica earlier in the week and enjoy a night of time that was just us.