Before you get married it is important that you and your future spouse discuss important questions like:

“Do you both want kids?”

“Where do you want to live?”

“Who gets to hold the remote control?”

Heather and I spent a lot of time pouring over these often divisive issues, and decided that we were compatible for the long haul. There was, however, one question we didn’t discuss and probably should have:

“How enthusiastic are you about the holiday season?”

Heather has always loved Christmas, but this year, in our own home, she has revealed herself to be a full-on Christmas/Holiday season fanatic. Just how much of one? I can only describe it using an Aristotelian analogy:

“TEENAGE GIRL : JUSTIN BEIBER :: HEATHER : CHRISTMAS”

Yesterday, for example, Heather put some Christmas tunes on as we relaxed in our living room. After about an hour I stood up and said, “Well, that Christmas music was fun.” Heather looked at me like I’d just sunk her battleship. “You want to stop listening already? But there’s still a hundred and eight songs left in my Christmas Mega Mix that we haven’t heard yet!”

A few weeks before that Heather took me to a crafts store to check out Christmas stuff for our home. I expecting to look at, say, an ornament or small wreath, but instead she lead me up to a display holding a penguin and snowman – both of which were human sized and lit up with tons of lights and glitter.

“So,” Heather asked, breathless with excitement. “Which one do you want?”

“Uh…”

“The snowman is more traditional, but the penguin is a lot of fun too! So which one do you want?”

“Uh…”

“Go on! Pick!”

“The, uh, snowman?”

frosty
Yep. We got the snowman.

“Okay. Great choice. But will it go with our lights?”

“What kind of lights do we have?”

“Well that depends…”

Heather pushed me down an aisle toward a huge selection of lights – white ones, multi-colored ones, bulb shaped ones, ones made to look like icicles, and so on. Heather was practically jumping up and down.

“Which ones, Mike? Which ones?”

“Uh….”

After that trip to the craft store we made a pact. Heather could do whatever she wanted to decorate our house as long as I promised to be okay with whatever that was.

It wasn’t long until our home was transformed. There was an elf on the shelf, a big Christmas tree and a couple little ones, festive bows on our kitchen cabinets, garland over our fireplace, a reindeer counting down the days until Christmas, and much, much more.

I felt like I’d stumbled into Mrs. Claus’ home.

Truth be told though, while I don’t have enough interest in the holiday season to put this stuff up myself, it is nice to have our home decked out – especially with Annie soon to be dreaming of sugar plums and all that good stuff in the years to come.

Last night, as we listened to song number 117 on Heather’s mega-mix, I got so caught up in the holiday spirit that I was moved to make a Christmas season suggestion of my own!

“You know what would make this moment even more festive?” I offered. “If we were sipping a glass of eggnog.”

“Eggnog?!” Heather croaked as she made a retching sound. “That stuff is rank!”

Oh well. At least I tried.