Well, of course we have decorated for Christmas already. I’ve just been so mesmerized by the twinkling lights that I haven’t shared it with you yet.

I’ve come to realize that the holidays are a lot about compromise as you get older. Deciding where to spend Christmas morning and where to have Christmas dinner. Deciding which airport to fly into and out of.

But all of those decisions were pretty easy for us.

The hard compromises were more along the lines of deciding when it is acceptable to start playing Christmas music. Deciding when it is ok to start asking to go get the tree. When to wrap presents. Which holiday drink to have while listening to the Christmas music Brad finally let me play on repeat.

Tough choices, right?

I have definitely broken Brad into the holiday season in our five years together.  When we first met, he was not so understanding of my over the top holiday cheer. He hated Christmas music. He thought decorations were kinda silly.

Then I sang him Dominic The Donkey – complete with donkey noises. And I introduced him to Doug, my four foot tall fake Christmas tree.

I don’t think he knew just how magical Dominic and Doug could make the holidays.

So five Christmases later, we are still compromising.  I have to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate and play Christmas music.  And I cannot get this tree:

Or this tree:

These are very fair compromises.  We ended up getting a lovely in-between tree.

We also played hide and seek, accidentally rapped for one of the workers, were forced to lie for a 10% discount (ok not forced…), and witnessed some pretty awesome tree-to-car tying.

And that very same night, Brad was just as excited as I was to string up some lights, throw on our favorite Herb Alpert Christmas album (seriously, best Christmas album ever… next to Mariah Carey’s), spike me some cider, and make our apartment Christmasy.

When Christmas music has been playing for three hours straight and I haven’t had a complaint yet, I know I’ve done well.

Compromising has gotten a lot easier.

Merry Christmas!!

xoxo