~Poop On Jelly~

Our Family's Bitter/Sweet Life



Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Ornament

Nurse Boy here. Yes, I am back. I am nursing this cold and I think I just might make it.

The Mrs. and I got married in January of 1997. We started dating our last month of high school and continued through college. I was slightly slow, so we had been dating for 4.5 years when we got married. You add on the almost whole first year of marriage you would think that I knew my wife before our first Christmas together. As I am sure you can imagine, I found out I did not.

We went out and bought our first Christmas tree and it was time to decorate. We did not have very many ornaments that had meaning. At this time we only had my wife's childhood ornaments and the mass produced ones that came in packs of twelve. So, my wife introduces me to our new tradition.

"We should buy each other an ornament every year for Christmas."

I thought, that is stupid. Why on God's green earth would I want an ornament every year for Christmas? I said,"O.K.".

She mentioned it more that 10 times, so I knew that I had to get her an ornament. I honestly did not know where to get this ornament. I did not think that real people spent 12 bucks at Hallmark on one ornament. There was a bargain seasonal store near our apartment at the time, so I went there on Christmas Eve. It was sort of the dollar store for Christmas. It looked like someone had just barfed Christmas in there. I had no clue where to go. I found a pair of ornaments that were angels and I thought they looked nice, so I dropped my 99 cents and was out of there. I put them in a box and wrapped them up.

When the Mrs. opened them, she literally cried.

They were not tears of joy.

I found out the angels were not just plastic ornaments, but they were light covers. To me that was a bonus. Not to the Mrs.

Apparently, I should have gone to Hallmark. I am not a sentimental person. I don't get sentiment. I do get tears, tearing of robes, and gnashing of teeth, though. I would like to say that I learned and got her a great ornament the next year, but it took me about eight years to understand what she meant.

We still hang those "light covers" on the tree every year. Now we laugh every time we look at them. So, I actually bought us memories all those years ago! Who knew?!

5 comments:

Mr. and Mrs. Nurse Boy said...

In all fairness, that first Christmas was a rough one, for a lot of reasons. Your thoughtless ornament just didn't help matters! I do laugh every year when we unwrap the ugliest plastic angels I have ever seen. Now, the tree is not decorated until the angels are hung and the story is retold. So, I guess, you didn't do so bad after all...

Mrs. Nurse Boy

carrhop said...

Light covers--I love it--sometime I'll have to post about my Mister and his continual love offerings of coffee mugs through the years...

Blessings!

Anonymous said...

Not a Christmas story, but perhaps this will encourage Nurse Boy.

MotH and I have been married for 13 years, together for about 16. This last anniversary, he started telling me WEEKS in advance about the gift he got for me. Something I've always wanted. He was quite smug.

Finally, he could stand it no more and told me what it was.

An ironing board. One that folds out from the wall (that, incidentally I did not want.......but he'd been wanting).

Yes, he was planning to celebrate our love with an ironing board.

He was shocked when he didn't get the response he hoped for (I didn't cry, but I was speechless). He then proclaimed women impossible to shop for.

Anonymous said...

Oh.....wait. I forgot the best part. The ironing board was one that a co-worker received that was BROKEN and the company replaced without needing the old one back. He intended to fix it.

So I got a BROKEN ironing board as a token of his love.

Boy Mom said...

I think 'getting sentiment' must be the ability to find a story and a smile in plastic angel light covers.

Thanks for the story and the smile.