Twenty-five Years and Counting

In celebration of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary the other day, my husband Paul and I did something special: We had our wedding bands cut off.

We were not symbolically severing our relationship as we severed the thinning gold from our thickening fingers. But it was time to admit that, after years of slowly adding extra weight, those rings were not coming off without help, and we were not going to be reverting to the slim bride and groom in our wedding album any time soon.

When I look at the photos of that young bride, happy and hopeful, unburdened by extra weight around the waist or lines around the eyes, gazing at her slender groom…I still feel like that. Less familiar looking is the person who looks back at me now from the mirror. I’m still making plans for the future as if it stretches out forever, and I wonder where 25 years could have gone.

The years quietly slipped away in moments big and small. A glorious honeymoon, followed quickly by a layoff. The births of our two cherished daughters, and the deaths of our two cherished mothers. The terror of knowing a sick child may not live, and tremendous joy when she did. Hours spent side by side at the soccer field, dance competitions, plays, art shows, and graduations. The long nights trying to explain algebraic equations we scarcely remembered ourselves, and long sessions doing our own math so I could stop working, so we could buy a bigger home, so we could pay tuitions. Finding time for tennis and volleyball and trips to the beach. Vacations in the snow and sun, holidays with his family, my family, our family. Paul putting in a brick walk in the summer heat because I wanted it. Me joining a sand sculpting team because he needed a teammate. Raking the leaves, cleaning the bathrooms, unclogging the sink, folding the laundry. Negotiating whether the Patriots game or Desperate Housewives gets the good TV. Laughing, crying, yelling, hugging.

Next week, we will pick up Paul’s resized and shined-up ring, and I’ll be getting a new one that is bigger and better than the old one. But that’s not the only reason I am okay with saying good-bye to the ring I’ve been wearing all these years. It has been a long and mostly happy marriage – one that has brought us closer together but has also brought us pretty far from those young, clueless pretty people in our wedding picture. It’s okay to let go of who we used to be – we really do have something bigger and better now.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well, if you ignore the falling leaves and the children in Halloween costumes.

A number of years ago, Staples, the office supply retail giant, first came out with a television ad that was delightful. At back to school time, a father skipped gleefully through the aisles of Staples to the tune of the holiday song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” while downcast children trudged behind him.

The beauty and humor of that ad was the juxtaposition of the familiar Christmas song during what was clearly not the holiday season. Now, the start of school seems to be followed immediately by the Christmas selling season. Relentless holiday displays and piped-in carols live next to plastic jack-o-lanterns and bags of candy corn in October. I can almost understand that. Businesses have quotas to meet and the sooner they get to it, the better their chances of ending the year in the black.
But what is everyone else’s excuse? This week, driving through New England neighborhoods in mild weather, I've seen the early emergence of inflatable snow globes, prancing reindeer and wooden “flat carolers” on front lawns. Why? What is the rush? Maybe these are just the early birds who have their shopping complete by Thanksgiving. But I suspect not.

On Thanksgiving Day, several area radio stations will start playing round-the-clock holiday tunes while the leftover turkey is still warm. Come Christmas Day, they will stop the holiday tunes cold turkey at noon. Likewise, the television Christmas specials begin Thanksgiving night. But come Christmas Eve, when I am doing my inevitable last-minute wrapping, there is not a Christmas movie to be found. Why? The radio stations and networks would probably say their listeners and viewers are sick of Christmas by Christmas. Well, no wonder when they start celebrating while the foliage is still in full color.

I can be pretty judgmental about people who still have wreaths on their doors come baseball season or who seem to think we cannot see their fake icicles glistening along their eaves under the July sun. But it makes me cringe just as much to see beautiful homes that are in full winter holiday décor by Thanksgiving and then go dark by Christmas night. After all, the 12 days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day.

Those you who have your holiday decorations packed away by New Year’s Eve can go ahead and feel smug as the lights on my tree twinkle until “little Christmas” on January 6. I will continue putting my trees up in mid-December. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s—when the work parties are over, the shopping is done, the relatives are in town and we have a few days to enjoy each other and our new gifts—I will continue to sit back and actually enjoy the decorations we worked so hard to put up. As long as I celebrate Christmas, I intend to do so during the actual Christmas season.