Since this was our first Christmas together living in the same house as a married couple, I wanted to establish some traditions together. I had visions, not of sugarplums, but of decorating the tree together, romantically, in front of a roaring fire. I had bought a few new decorations, since most of what we have is uninspired, and I wanted to begin establishing all of the memories that we could look back on each year as we decorated the tree. I dreamed of waking up together under our fluffy duvet and crawling out of bed on Christmas morning to open up our stockings (he had filled mine and I had filled his, each of us playing santa for the other) while huddled together under a blanket on our new couch. In my head we opened our Dutch chocolate letters and ate the oranges from the toes of our stockings (my family's tradition) and poured our miniature bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream (his family’s tradition) into his morning coffee and my hot chocolate.

I’m not sure where all of these crazy expectations came from. For some reason the first year of marriage has a ridiculous amount of pressure. Each tiny action feels like you are establishing ‘the way it will be for time without end’, which is far too stressful, really, for what should be a relaxing and happy time. So, of course, reality didn't even bear a passing resemblance to my foolish fantasies.

We were far to busy to get our tree trimmed any earlier than the week before Christmas so on a night that we were both home, our friends basically staged an intervention. Roscoe was staying with us and Melly, Chnaners and Kristy came over and we all decorated the tree together. We had ‘Barenaked for the Holidays’ playing on the stereo and we joked and laughed and goofed around and generally had a great time. They all made sure to let us put up the few decorations that were special to us, but our tree was decorated in record time.

The next fantasy was about Christmas morning. Of course I already knew what our plans for Chrismas Morning were, long before I dreamed up “Christmas morning for Karen and Paul in an alternate dimension.” Every year we go to church with Paul’s family on Christmas Eve, play games all night, and sleep over at the farm. We wake up to the voice of a small child whispering “Mewy Cwistmas”, listen to Papa read from the bible by candlelight, meditate on what we are grateful for, sing happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out the candles, then tear open the brightly wrapped packages in a frenzy of gift opening joy. We then travel to my parent’s place for an intimate Christmas dinner for twenty, followed by a slew relatives arriving and cheerful Christmas chaos. We generally hang out and clean up with my brother while my sister sleeps and we gripe about her not helping. We come home to our snug little beds and smile that we have survived another Christmas with our families.

As we left the farm, Paul’s mom gave him a last little gift. Paul’s Grandma died last summer and when Mama was going through her belongings she found a Christmas ornament in a little box. The box was labeled “Baby boy Chrismas, 1977”, which means that his Grandma bought it when he was born, the first grandchild. I couldn’t have dreamed it, but that ornament will now be a sweet part of our Christmas traditions.

Now every year I can look back at our first Christmas as a married couple and remember how our friends came over and we had so much fun decorating the tree all together, and Paul can hang the ornament passed down from his grandma to his mom to him and add years of history to the first year of our tree.

Sometimes you don’t get what you want for Christmas, you get what you need.








Trimming the tree.












Giving Doug horns (which sounds dirty but isn't.)












Kristy with Paul's stocking.















Our temporary tree topper.
















New ornaments.











A pile of fun on our couch.















The Grinch couldn't steal our tree (he's too tiny.)















Paul and spidey.












Me and Kermie.














Our paper bag angel from Amanda.
















After the tree is done.















Santa Pants.
















Our attempted Christmas card photo for next year.

















Melly told us to battle with our antlers...








...but I got poked in the eye. (It's true: it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.)

This picture actually typifies our relationship quite well.

Merry Christmas!