So there we were. Me and my husband—who was only my boyfriend back then—asserting our couplehood in our city, Seattle, by spending Christmas in our apartment, just the two of us. Neither of our families lived shorter than a three-hour plane ride away. All our friends had decided to go elsewhere. It was just us. We had spent Christmas together before, plenty of times, but in the company of one of our families. We had also spent a few Thanksgivings together, sans families, which were lovely. But, this was different. We had made the decision to spend this major holiday together. And that included decorations, lights, trees and traditions—of which we had none—together.
It all of a sudden became very important to me that our first Christmas together go perfectly and that we would create some sort of tradition that would carry on through our lives. That Perry Como and Frank Sinatra’s Christmas tunes would be the soundtrack of our entire holiday season. That it would magically snow in Seattle (after not snowing for years). Sure, sure, I was putting an incredible amount of pressure on the situation, but you see, I’m a fanatic about Christmas and all the traditions that come with it. I was dying for my sweetheart and me to have our very own holiday custom.
Several weeks prior to the holiday, I started scouring the newspaper for holiday events. There were, of course, the standard Nutcracker, Christmas Carol, and tree lighting ceremonies, but we’d done all that before. I needed to find something new, adventurous. Something that was just ours. Something that we would tell our children about one day while we sipped cocoa around a roaring fire in our log cabin nestled in the Colorado mountains. Yes, yes, I know. Again, too much pressure on the perfect situation. But I wanted so badly to find just the right event, ceremony, or ritual for us.
In the meantime, I was a red and green tornado of activity. Hurricane Christmas hit our 900-square foot apartment. My dear sweet boyfriend understood my love of the holidays and humored my overdecorating by aiding in my addiction to trees, lights, candles, and ornaments. He just smiled when I insisted on having frosted holiday berry-scented candles lit at all times, starting December 1, and Perry Como’s Christmas CD playing during all waking hours. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I made our place look like a Bloomingdale’s holiday wonderland, that might be our holiday tradition. But after some of the new holiday tradition crept into the bathroom, by way of a few decorations on the counter and around the mirror, my sweetheart put a limit on the holidayness. So I settled down a bit and realized that my search for the greatest holiday tradition a couple could have was still escaping me.
