Christmas Miracle

Hallelujah, Jesus, Mary, Gladys Knight and the Pips. I have witnessed a Christmas miracle.

After seven magical years of marriage, Jim and I put up the tree last night without a single fight. Holy Moly Mother of God, can you believe it? We bought it, lashed it, drove it, leaned it, watered it, carried it, eye-balled it, and lit it without so much as a glare. Nary a snarky comment crossed our lips. Not even a sigh. You almost would have thought that I'd hired a nice non-English speaking Mexican, or to be more precise, Irish/Swedish gentleman to set it up for me. That's how well we got along.

Does this mean our marriage is going to make it? Can a marriage really fail if you can get a tree up without incident. It seems that last night's Christmas miracle could and should stand as a metaphor for our whole lifetime's pledge to each other, right? I mean, looky here:

The tree could symbolise our kid, our house, our love, any of them, all of them, our car, it doesn't matter. And reaching an agreement and deciding on the right tree, which was effortless by the way, could be the two of us taking equal responsibility for our lives and our future together, planning and participating in the unbridled joy that is a marriage between adults. Overlooking life's irrefutable flaws and looking on the cheery bright side, you know, that ever-present humdinger, "Compromise." Right, right.

The lashing with the twine to the roof of the car could symbolise sex, yeah, sex, with the communication and the give and take and the "Careful, you don't want to hurt the branches," and the holding on and hoping it makes it all The Way HOME! YEEE-HAWW! And the watering, is of course the literal and metaphorical nurturing of the family and our relationship. You know, money in the bank, hugs all around, milk and Mallomars in the fridge. Or is that milk and eggs. What-ev. The carrying the tree in the house together represents shouldering life's burdens as a unified front. All that crap, you know, taking life as it comes but on the same page, as a team player and whatever other inane sports/corporate lingo comes to mind. And then there's the lights.

The stringing of the lights could be allowing for the little things, life's bright little moments, to make us deliriously happy and remind us that we should be GRATEFUL, DAMMIT, for every tiny gift. And I mean every gesture, every everything that we each do for each other from every dish that gets scraped into the wet garbage to each time a car is warmed up or coat is helped on. Let's sprinkle some pixie dust on them and line 'em up on a string like so many fireflies playing red rover, for us to gape at with awe and wonder. What a marvel is our marriage! Each individual light, so seemingly insignificant, yet so simple and perfect. Right there in a tower in our living room, every single "God-bless-you" and "I'm getting a glass of water, do you want one?" wound round and round a dying tree. Not a dying marriage, a dying tree. In this instance, a tree is just a tree, O.K? O.k.

So we plug em in and back up and we turn out the living room lights and sit down next to each other, or one of us sits in front of the TV so that he can watch the last quarter of the game, and I sit on the couch, but that's OK, really, because we just witnessed a Christmas miracle and so who's counting. And there are the lights twinkling their little asses off and here am I enthralled with the magic of Christmas and proud of myself for reigniting, in the bowels of my heart, the spirit of hope once again.

It's all down hill after this moment as I recall from last year. Nah, I'm just kidding. But for a moment I seriously consider, as I kiss my TV-glazed husband and head up to bed, that maybe we should keep a tree in our living room all year round. What the hay.