Compromise

I've heard it many times.  In all of my marriage advice seeking, I often heard the term "compromise" thrown in to the mix.  And it's true.  I've learned that not only in marriage, but well before throughout the course of our relationship.  Everything from restaurant choices to duty stations have encountered a compromise at one time or another and this Christmas was no different.

My husband is not really a fan of Christmas time and holidays in general.  Which leads to interesting conversations this time of year.  For me, holidays have always been a really special time.  My family wasn't the close knit white picket fence kind of family growing up, but around the holidays we always had special moments together.  Some of my favorite times with my parents and my siblings involve putting the tree up with Christmas music in the background, driving around to look at Christmas lights, and my brother and I rushing downstairs on Christmas morning secretly, and an ungodly hour, dumping out our stockings all over the floor to see what was inside, and then putting it all back up and going back to sleep for a couple more hours.  I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME.  I love celebrations and holidays in general.  I love gift giving and decorating and on and on and on. 

My husband... not so much.

So.  The questions remains... how do we find a common ground here?  How do I relinquish some of my passion for Christmas in order not to crowd him?  And how does he pep up and act joyful this time of year when he can hardly stomach it?  We're still working on it.  I hope that we can find a way to create our own traditions and memories around this time of year... but I think it will take time.

We've done pretty good this year.  For example - Sgt. helped me put the tree up, and then I did all the ornaments and decorating.  We're doing gifts but we put a spending limit on it, and we're doing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" where we get to open a gift (starting tomorrow) every day until Christmas.  We also made a gingerbread house! 

Gingerbread house?  Well that sounds pretty festive and traditional.  Doesn't it?  The compromise here?  We make a gingerbread house, as long as the husband gets to decide what kind of house it will be. Fair enough. 

Made all the more interesting by the fact that we created this type of house as a competition between two of our couple friends who also made the same type of house.  Just to spoil the end... we totally won :)

I hope you enjoy pictures of our Gingerbread house compound.  Complete with C-Wire, sandbags, guard towers with candy cane M-4s an ECP up front, and a moat with radioactive sharks.
Merry Christmas!