Oh, Christmas Tree!

I love Christmas. I love the music, the decorations, the gift-giving, all of it. Christmastime makes me really happy. I especially love Christmas trees. Ok, not all trees, just my tree – my beautiful, elegant, simple, gold-silver-and-white-only tree.

My husband hates Christmas. He doesn’t like all of the expectations and subsequent disappointment that have gone along with his Christmases in the past. This is our fourth Christmas together, and over these past four years, we’ve alternated between having a tree and not. To my delight, this is a have-a-tree year. We got new furniture a few months ago, and now we really don’t have any room for a tree, so we agreed that we’d get a small, artificial table-top tree to place right on top of an end table in the living room. I was pleasantly surprised when Beau told me that he wanted to go with me to pick out the tree. We got to the store last night and decided on a larger tree than I thought he’d be in for. Excellent. We had the tree in the buggy and it was time to go home and decorate it! But then he says we need to get some decorations. What? No, we don’t. We have beautiful, lovely decorations already at home. Well, he’s really getting into this whole tree thing, and I love that he is. I don’t want to crush any of his new-found Christmas spirit. His excitement over the whole thing made my love for him and for the holiday grow even more.

We spent an hour in Target picking out some of the worst Christmas tree decorations ever made. It’s our Christmas, I decided, and we can make it however we want; new traditions that are just ours, without all of the old heartaches and disappointments. We went home and decorated it up, with Beau’s joy growing all the while. There’s palm tree garland, a scuba diving bee, cars, a motorcycle, and flashing multi-colored lights. And sitting right on top, a life-sized cardinal with a long, feathered tail. It’s the awfulest, most wonderful Christmas tree there ever was.

My gift this year has been the best yet: learning that the power of a relationship can turn something bad into something wonderful.

For How Long?

Just the other day, my husband looked at me and told me how much better his life is with me in it. He told me how, when he was single, despite his overall satisfaction with his life, there was something missing. He made me feel loved and appreciated. I laid awake in bed that night thinking about what he'd said. I was touched; I always enjoy it when he expresses his affection and care for me. But my thoughts quickly turned. When we first married, my body was soft and curvy, never skinny. But now it is lumpy and distorted, stretched and swollen. He has never, not once, criticized my appearance. Have I dissapointed him? Does he long for someone else? How long will he tolerate this?

Is it possible to let someone else love you when you can barely tolerate yourself?