It’s Monday morning and I’m on campus for one reason and one reason only: to give an early final to a student with an exam conflict. So, you know, it’s a pretty exciting morning over here. Let’s talk about something else.

How about my Christmas tree? CW and I finally had our chance to go pick one out yesterday and we got a lovely one! It’s pretty tall — I’m not sure how tall, but it’s taller than any I’ve had before, for sure, and I can only reach the top with a step ladder. We love it. (I didn’t get a good picture of it in our house last night, but I’ll post one soon.)

CW is actually really excited about decorating this year because we are finally doing colored lights and ornaments. In the past, we’ve used all my white lights and silver/white ornaments I’ve had for the past 7-8 years, but he’s always wanted to do a colorful tree. I am most definitely a white-lights person when it comes to Christmas. White lights remind me of snowflakes and icicles and starlight. Colored lights remind me of neon signs and children’s toys. They just don’t have the Christmas magic feeling for me, but I know my husband feels the exact opposite way. Colored lights are absolutely his jam. This year, I was finally like, “Okay, let’s get some colored lights at Target.” I had no idea how happy he was going to be about it, but y’all, he seriously loves the tree this year and his happiness is contagious, so I’m pleased about it, too.

This whole situation has the added benefit of CW being super jazzed about decorating for Christmas in general, so he’s been helping me put all sorts of other things up around the house. I have a few years’ worth of painstakingly cut-out paper snowflake garlands, for example, that we’ve hung all around the house. As I was stringing a couple dozen of these snowflakes together last night to hang in our front hallway, it occurred to me that it’s possible I’ve taken too many holiday decor cues from Buddy the Elf. But you know what? I can live with that. We’ve also got these strings of white lights that we’re not using on the tree, so now we’re doing some white lights inside, on the big shelf, and probably outside on a couple of bushes as well.

So there will be white lights, too. Just like there can be two kinds of potatoes at Thanksgiving, there can be two kinds of lights at Christmas. Hmmm. Is it possible that after 13 years of living alone, I am learning something about compromise in marriage? Or was this more like the queen sacrifice in chess, where the Christmas tree is the queen and the white lights throughout the rest of the house are the eventual checkmate? I’ll let you decide.