People talk often and feverishly about love at first sight. The lights seem to dim, violins play, deer leap, frogs row and tiny cute birds fly in from out of nowhere just to sing.  For me and my main man, he just looked at me with those dark brown pools of light, started shivering and then peed. That was ten years ago this January and, after scrubbing down my couch, we’ve been best buds ever since. Wow, it’s crazy to think we’ve been tied at the hip for an entire decade.

My husband and I have been together for 5 months shy of 20 years. That's 19 Christmases, y'all.  We have somehow survived an unending brutal recession, a violently popped real estate bubble, 6 tropical storms, 3 tornadoes and a half dozen nasty cases of the stomach bug. We have remained strong through 7 moves, 43 tween sleepovers, lost teeth, lost keys, flat tires, burnt spaghetti pans, Amex bills, ER visits, and countless steely bouts of individual self-esteem.

I’m not a perfectionist by nature. Except for the last 31 days of the year, when I seem to suddenly morph into one. It’s as if those the first 334 days don’t count. During that time, I don’t seem to mind so much if the day’s events and household chores don’t turn out the way I want them to. So why does Christmas have to be so picture perfect?