Our First Holiday Season...

Amid graduate school, work, wedding planning and moving, our first holiday season together arrived.  I was very excited to establish lifelong holiday traditions.  Johnie, not so much.  Good for him, he obliged me anyway.  We were talking about our holiday traditions a few months ago (which Johnie now enjoys, by the way), and Johnie asked how I would have felt if he had been totally opposed to creating or celebrating any holiday traditions.  I told him I would have broken up with him.  He thought I was joking, but I assured him that the holidays are such a big deal to me (including all the traditions and family time that is wrapped up in them) that I wasn't willing to give them up for a boy. 

Johnie traveled to Kentucky to celebrate Thanksgiving with me and my family.  I don't remember much about it except Johnie being impressed by the meal my mother prepared.  Christmas, on the other hand, was quite hectic.  We had planned our wedding for December 30th in Kentucky, and my semester at school wrapped up mid-December.  So, after finishing school, I had to move to Kansas, celebrate Christmas, and get married all in about a two week period.  Sadly, Christmas celebrations in Kentucky took a back seat.  My roommate and I opted not to put up a tree in our apartment since we'd be out by Christmas anyway.  I was still adamant about establishing traditions with Johnie, though.

After completing my classes, I loaded up my car and headed for Kansas.  Nearing Christmas day, and having not erected a Christmas tree, it was a priority of mine to get a tree up in what would be our apartment when I returned to Kansas again.  Johnie would have preferred not having a Christmas tree.  I don't think he'd ever had one growing up, and he wasn't thrilled to start now.  I didn't care.  I put it up while he was at work, and he was thoughtful enough not to even hint at taking it down.  While I did let him out of helping with the decorations that year, I did inform him that we must buy an ornament to commemorate 2006 and he would be joining me for that.

It is still difficult for us to navigate the miles separating our families and still be fair during the holiday season, and it was especially difficult for us that first year.  Thankfully, my family is much more concerned with the traditions surrounding the holiday (cooking a huge meal, spending time with family) than the date in which we actually celebrate it, and Johnie's family didn't have many holiday traditions set in stone.  That first year we decided to celebrate Christmas with his family on Christmas eve, and then travel to Kentucky on Christmas day to celebrate with my family and prepare for the wedding in the final days.

Since it wasn't really "our" apartment that Christmas, and we were going to be in the car all day long our very first Christmas day together, I still felt a bit jipped in the celebration for Johnie and me.  (I also was very concerned with both of us establishing our own traditions, separate from either of our families.)  I devised a grand plan to celebrate the day in the car together.  I planned to wear a cheesy Christmas sweater (topped with a red Santa hat) and tune the radio to holiday music.  Still not wanting to leave a tree out of our first Christmas celebration, I thought of a brilliant idea: we could buy a tree-shaped car air freshener and I could decorate it with markers.  An air freshener sized tree was much more Johnie's speed, anyway.

When I first thought of this, I had several weeks to prepare.  I thought I would pick up the little tree, and deck it out with glitter, markers, and maybe even cut out a little paper star to glue on top.  But, with so many things on my to-do list, and being a bit distracted with other things, the little tree was never purchased nor decorated.  I never forgot about it, though.  Driving up to Kansas City to spend the night with Johnie's sister on Christmas eve, I mentioned we had yet to buy the tree.  Johnie agreed we could buy one first thing the next morning.  I had a blue ink pen in the car I decided I could decorate the little tree with. 

True to his word, Johnie stopped at a gas station just down the street from his sister's house early Christmas morning.  I eagerly waited in the car for what seemed like half an hour.  He returned with our very first Christmas tree.  It was an "extra large" tree shaped air freshener, so a bit bigger than your standard size.  Johnie earned some major points with that!  I excitedly tore open the packaging to begin "decorating" the tree before hanging it from the visor.

The tree was larger than normal and the packaging touted that it was "extra strength" for even more air freshening ability.  The smell hit us like a wall.  Whew!  I had wanted to draw intricate little ornaments, garlands, and a star on top with my ink pen.  I managed to scribble a few little dots on it before sliding it back in the plastic and laying it on the dashboard.  I told Johnie the tree didn't have to be very ornate to still work for us.  He honestly didn't care one way or another.  I tried to reseal the packaging to shield us from the smell, but it still enveloped the car.  We stopped and I washed my hands.  We could still smell the tree.

I put the tree in the glove box, telling Johnie that it didn't have to be out for every one to see for us to still celebrate.  The smell still seeped out.  It gave me a headache, but I took a couple Tylenol and persevered.  Into Illinois, we began discussing how to rid ourselves of the smell.  Johnie suggested that we could roll the windows down and air out the car.  We did that, but couldn't keep them down for long since it was so cold, and a wintry mix began to drizzle down.  Inspired by Johnie's suggestion, I reasoned that if we aired out the air freshener our problem would be solved.  I cracked my window a bit, looped the string of the tree around my finger and held it out the window.

Several miles passed.  The smell still lingered, but we were hopeful it would dissipate soon.  I stipulated that the precipitation would probably help get the smell out even faster.  I switched the tree from hand to hand.  Johnie, in an effort to be helpful, and seal the car completely from the freezing temperatures and drizzle, suggested that I close the window on the air freshener itself.  I thought it was worth a shot.  I held my finger close to the edge and rolled the window up.  It was a marvelous solution!  We celebrated our accomplishment, and laughed at the flapping noise the tree made as it hit up against the car. 

Then the flapping stopped.  I turned to look.  The tree was no longer there.  I looked to Johnie.  His eyes were wide and he covered his mouth with his hand.  I looked back to the window, a green string still hanging on the inside.  I rolled the window down and retrieved the very tip (probably less than an inch) of what was left of the air freshener.  I probably would have wanted to stop and search for the tree had we lost the whole thing.  I had talked at length when I first began hanging it out the window how we had to be really careful to not let it blow away since it was, after all, our very first Christmas tree.  But, we still had the tree.  Although there wasn't much left, there was still physical evidence of it.  I was satisfied with that, and began to laugh.  Johnie started laughing, too.  If you know me, you can understand his hesitance on not knowing how I would handle or react to what had just happened. 

Believe it or not, the tip of that little tree still stank up the car.  Although it didn't solve the problem completely, we dropped it down in an empty tea bottle we had in the car and sealed the lid as tightly as we could. 

I still have that little tip of a tree tucked away in a dresser drawer.  After our house was broken into, I was actually thankful that it was something the robber didn't take.  It has lost all its scent since Christmas day 2006, but we still chuckle about it, and enjoy sharing this story.

Oh, and Johnie did a good job with Christmas presents that year.  He bought me diamond earrings.