Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Aspirin

As newlyweds, my husband and I lived those first few months on love and an occasional trip to the grocery store. I reveled in the anticipation of sharing Christmas, my absolutely-no-question-about-it favorite time of the year, with the love of my life. We're lucky we didn't celebrate the day with a double murder. Looking back I can see that the problem would have been obvious to anyone not mentally impaired by love. In theory, we celebrated the same holiday. In practical fact, our traditions couldn't have been more different. I started shopping in October. He wanted to know what the rush was. The day after Thanksgiving I got out the decorations I'd purchased so frugally the year before at a 75% off sale. He just shook his head at my craziness. Then the week before Christmas, when I announced I was ready to go buy the tree, he stared at me as though I had morphed into a Keebler elf. Our fiercest battle was over whether to have an angel or a star at the top of the tree. We ended up with a generic sort of bauble the first few years, because I couldn't find a five-pointed star like the one I was used to. Eventually we did buy an angel, but only because years of not finding a proper star had worn me down. I'd like to report that I acquiesced gracefully, but I hate to lie. You may be wondering, didn't I notice before we were married that his family had different Christmas traditions than mine? Of course, I did. During the three years we dated, I participated in many of their holiday activities. I found them quaint. Occasionally interesting. But it honestly never occurred to me that our first Christmas would be a problem. After all, my family's traditions were so obviously better, no, so obviously right, ho ho ho, that it never crossed my mind that my husband wouldn't embrace all of my ideas with complete abandon. I got through that first season on pure enthusiasm. For the next several years I continued to believe that he would "see the light." At long last, we started to work out our own traditions, and in this spirit of compromise ... "No! No, wait! The Wise Men go to the right of the manger." Where did I put that aspirin?