O Christmas Tree | O Christmas Tree 2 | Beebower Productions
“Merry Christmas!” “Now, Put ‘Em Up”
Imagine a cozy and warm scene of a family decorating the Christmas tree, laughing while sipping hot chocolate and hanging ornaments with Bing Crosby crooning in the background. Sounds wonderful, right?
Our first year to host Thanksgiving as a married couple turned out anything but wonderful. We decided after the big dinner we’d purchase a Christmas tree and start decorating with our guests.
At least that part of the plan went off without a hitch. We successfully picked out a beauty at the local tree lot and hauled it home. My parents and Jonathan’s friend dutifully began unpacking the decorations box while my husband and I set up the tree in the living room.
And then the fighting began.
I asked, “White lights or colored?”
White, naturally, I thought. White looked so peaceful and serene like sun glistening off of freshly fallen snow. Everyone knew that, I thought.
“Colored. It’s cheerful and reminds me of presents wrapped in all kinds of colorful paper,” he said definitively.
Wait, what? You want colored?! I’d barely processed that thought when I noticed a hodge podge of ornaments popping up all over the tree.
“Why are you hanging all of those ornaments? None of them match!” I said in frustration.
He countered with, “That’s how we always do it. Besides what do we need ribbon for? We use tinsel.”
Our guests heads’ whipped back and forth like spectators watching a high-speed tennis match. Things were getting heated! The tree decorating ground to a halt.
We had the classic matching vs. eclectic decorating fight. No amount of pre-wedding counseling prepared us for this. The pastor never mentioned Christmas decorations. We felt cheated. Someone should have told us this would be a major problem!
So that poor, half-decorated tree sat in our living room for a couple of days before we worked out a solution. (Both of us are a bit stubborn.) We would, henceforth, have two trees: one embellished with matching decorations and the other loaded down with a mishmash of ornaments.
Now that many years have passed we can laugh about that first tree decorating debacle. We’ve even learned a bit more about the art of compromise. Each year I buy him non-matching ornaments for his tree. He lets me put the matching tree in the living room instead of alternating as we originally negotiated. The way we see it, Christmas is twice the fun it used to be. Now that’s love.
Now It’s Your Turn
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