It's Divorce Season
All is calm, all is bright
If the sight of the above photo doesn’t instill hot buttered rage in your heart, are you even married?
It’s the magical time of year when my husband and I spend several hours hanging up Christmas lights and fantasize about what it would be like to decorate our own separate houses. There is one person in this scenario who loves Christmas the most and that person has definite opinions on how the lights should be strung.
Yeah, I’m a christmas freak, or rather, a Christmas control freak. It’s my season, bitches! I bake, I cook, I host, I decorate, I give, I receive, I clean, I make it nice all the while making everyone else very, very miserable. It starts early in these parts. Basically I stand behind Halloween saying, “Thanks for coming, had a blast, here’s your coat, now byeeeeeeee!” Poor Thanksgiving doesn’t stand a chance. The Jan to my beautiful, holly jolly Marcia. If your turkey ain’t dressed in red and white stockings and stuffed with cinnamon sticks and star anise, please get it the hell out of here.
While the inside of my house gets its full wintery makeover in early November, I wait until closer to Thanksgiving to deck the outside halls. No, not because of peer pressure or some dumb societal norms instilled by people who really love bundles of straw. Because it’s a lot and I simply can’t do all of it in one weekend. But, now the time is upon us. As evidenced by the complete buffoonery the husband exhibited this morning when he uttered these words:
“I might get started on the Christmas lights.”
Son, does the cast get started on the production without the director? Do sous chefs get started on prep without clear, concise instructions from the chef? Does a husband who has known his wife for nearly two decades want to get suplexed by the spirit of Christmas?
So, I very calmly set down my coffee, put on a smile as artificial as the snow that falls in my beloved Hallmark Channel holiday movies, and ever-so-kindly asked him what in the silent night he was talking about.
“I want to get started on the outdoor lights,” he repeated, like not even recognizing the gift of retraction I had given him. I gave you the chance to correct yourself, buddy boy. And you reject it like it’s frankincense and myrrh?
“Why on Earth would you do that?” I asked, still I might add, very calm.
“Because it’s almost Thanksgiving.” He sounded surprised like I didn’t know that. Like he was talking to a time traveler who glitched out and accidentally ended up in November 2023. He knows I don’t understand time travel!
“You cannot do that without me,” I said. “You know that.”
“Oh great!” he answered. “Come help me.”
Okay.
Maybe I’m not entirely clear on how things work in this house at Christmas, so allow me to be more prescriptive. I do not help. I LITERALLY DO EVERYTHING. Perhaps my husband is punking me or trying some weird marriage motivational reverse psychology B.S. he learned in a subreddit.
Or perhaps he has a better memory than I do. Maybe every January I threaten to cancel Christmas (I do) because nobody helps me set up or tear down (they don’t) and he felt bad and promised to do more next year and I said something like, “YOU CAN BE IN CHARGE OF THE OUTSIDE LIGHTS!” Maybe he spent the next eleven months getting hyped, drawing up plans, staying up late studying our housing schemata like Jack Bauer from 24, Eye of the Tiger, baby, only to discover his wife with the memory of a gnat has clearly forgotten this noble delegation!
I HAVE A VISION, PEOPLE!
I will not help. I will do.
I made a big show out of moving my coffee from its indoor, “Be Merry” ceramic mug to a stainless steel, double-wall vacuum insulated outdoor coffee mug.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Bart is a master diffuser (also like Jack Bauer) and can tame my internal beast pretty quickly. He can sense the temperature rising and barometer getting low and he’ll make a dumb joke or ignore me or— my favorite— pretend to fall down the porch steps because he didn’t see the giant box of fir-scented pinecones I put directly in his path. Gets me every time! One year I sent him to the hardware store for a “double male extension cord” which, my friends, does not (or rather should not) exist. Why? Because they are extremely dangerous as both ends are “live,” or some shit like that and if we had gotten our hands on one we could have electrocuted ourselves or blown up the whole neighborhood. Whatever. (I was willing to risk it rather than re-hang all the lights I hung backwards.) Pretty sure the clerk was ready to call 911 and have Bart booked on reckless endangerment charges and yet the guy still wants to spend a day off wrapping Christmas lights around porch railings only to have the old biddy he married rewrap them the right way as soon as he moved on to the next task. I had to marry him! It was court ordered.
I’m happy to say we’re about halfway through the task and still talking to each other, BUT THE DAY IS YOUNG. It was touch and go for a bit when we couldn’t untangle the net lights and then my carefully strung garland came unfastened and whipped Bart on the back of the neck. (Okay, that part was actually funny.) He’s off to the the store now to buy melting chocolate and heavy cream so I can get started on the next phase of my I DO EVERYTHING NO ONE ASKED ME TO DO holiday action plan: baking!
This Thanksgiving, as we dig into the meal prepared by Whole Foods, I will feel my heart grow three sizes as I give thanks to a very patient, sometimes blissfully oblivious man and a sweet child who insists on watching YouTube at max volume making it impossible to hear his parents on the front lawn yelling at each other about why the solar charge on the oversized bulbs isn’t working. (The neighbors on the other hand— sorrrrrrrreeeeeee.) I think we might make it to another Christmas. Maybe next year get our son involved so he can experience the true meaning of the season. Tis better to give into the vision, than receive the full wrath of a holiday-loving Middle-Aged Lady Mom.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Even if you don’t celebrate, please accept my gratitude for welcoming me into your inbox every week, giving my words a read, sharing, subscribing, and even tossing a few coins in the ol’ coffer (I’m utterly gobsmacked by you— you know you could just call me and I’d tell you these stories for free, right?) Just like Santa Claus, I know you’re out there (and I know if don’t open your emails too. Ooooohhh!) Very thankful to you all! Now roll out the holly and get out there!
XO,
Shelly
The name for this Hallmark movie should be "Christmas Thunder" or "A Harangue For The Holidays". ;)