Fourteen: Recapturing Christmas Romance

December 14th, 2011 § 2

 

I can’t remember a worse December
Just watch those icicles form!
What do I care if icicles form?
I’ve got my love to keep me warm.
~ Irvin Berlin
 

I sent an email this afternoon to my husband, my groom, the man of my dreams:

Hey, have you seen the lint-brush?

As I hit SEND, I shook my head. Is this what it’s come to?

Before we were married, I remember missing that boy at Christmas like crazy. The day wasn’t quite complete without him, but I tried not to pout. I might’ve pouted a little. I waited for the phone to ring (this was back before cell phones or free long distance). One year, a few months before we got engaged, I had my hopes up during a pre-Christmas visit. Over a romantic meal, he presented me with… a sweater. A grey sweater.

Still, things were so holding-hands-at-the-Nutcracker back then.

Seventeen years later, I’m still madly in love with The Spouse. But I send him emails about lint-brushes, and we stay up late Christmas Eve snapping at each other while we wrap a few last-minute gifts for the kids. There are slippery spots we fall down on every year, like packing the car to go to my parents’ (Luke calls my pile of clothes “Mt. St. Laura’s”).

We even argue on the way to dinner parties sometimes. I’m in a red dress, he’s dressed in his best suit, we smell good. What’s there to fight about? But we can air grievances all the way from our driveway to the hosts’, and some of our friends live almost an hour away. (Friends: You know who you are. Don’t we do a good job of smiling pretty despite the fuss we’ve just had?)

Mostly we’re just worn out: “You want to get  Sadie up? I got her up last time,” or, “Could you take the dogs out while I wipe this puddle off the floor?”

But my husband likes to remind me we’re not roommates, two people who live together to share chores and expenses. And he’s right.

This Christmas I’m going to try to remember how I ached when he was eating coconut cake in Georgia while I was eight hours north in Kentucky. I’m going to count myself a lucky girl because we get to be in the same room at the same time, watching our children open gifts we bought and wrapped together (more or less). We get to travel in the same car, eat the same holiday food, sleep in the same bed. We get to reminisce about Christmases past and look forward to Christmases to come. We get to clink our glasses, wink at each other from across a relative-filled room, share an armchair if there’s a shortage of seats. And if we happen to find ourselves under a sprig of mistletoe…

Last night, after we each had a crazy busy day (is there any other kind?), we met for a drink at a favorite restaurant before the twins’ orchestra concert. We had 25 minutes to reconnect. I’m not sure that was enough, but it was something. And later, during the seventh grade’s rendition of “Feliz Navidad,” we held hands.

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