Not My Tree

As I mentioned, David and I have had a minor ongoing debate about Christmas tree lights for a couple of weeks. I had actually bought a set of white lights and had finally coaxed him to let me use them (albeit begrudgingly), or so I thought.

But he really wasn't happy, and I began to feel like a total meanie for making him go along with my (gorgeous, tasteful, elegant) decorating scheme. He seems to feel that since he grew up with coloured lights (as did I), they are the only proper lights for a Christmas tree. In fact, he claims that he "hates" white lights and "always has". Well, I love white lights and "always have" , but I guess that is irrelevant since he has voiced his decorating opinion.

You see, I do most of the decorating and David never complains, so when he finally has an opinion, I am supposed to listen. But really, why does he have more right than me to an opinion? And why does he only seem to have one when it is different from mine?

Anyway, David does hate pretension and being fancy-pants and I understand that. He seems to have developed a long-standing association of white lights with arrogant snooty types. I don't understand the venom, I really don't, but I think David feels like he is cheating on his family values if he does something that might be perceived as pretentious. And I think there is a little bit of "this is how my mother did it" so it must be right.

I was conflicted because I've been buying these lovely, coherent white and green and silver things for around the house and would have liked these colours to be dominant on the tree (along with our small and disparate collection of ornaments - in all colours, red and gold included!). I had not voiced that to David, and had only talked about the white lights, which I thought would soften all the visual noise and help bring all the weird bits together.

Well, this all changed when David came home the other night with some Christmas balls he bought at his favorite discount store. They are ORANGE and BLUE!

They are very pretty, happy Christmas balls and as soon as I saw them, my heart melted. Orange and blue would not have been my first choice, considering my issues with colours other than green and white and silver (an idea hatched because of those damned pink rugs and apple green walls of mine!!)....

So at that moment, I decided to throw in the towel. His little ornaments were pretty and kitschy and happy. And I am too uptight. That Hermes orange was a wonderful cheery colour. So, to heck with it! Let's have a tree with multi-coloured balls and weird ornaments and blue and orange balls and coloured lights and it will look just like every other Canadian non-fancy-pants household!

In a way, I'm relieved because now we can just hang up whatever ornaments we feel like - Snoopy, Star Wars, mice in baskets, cats on skates. And we can use those lovely vintage ornaments we bought a while ago...just like these ones (but with a Christmas theme).

Photo courtesy of Room Service Home

Maybe eventually, after 20 years of marriage, we will figure out when to take a stand and when to not bother. I still want my dream tree. But I want more for him to be happy.