It happens to most couples. You think living with eachother will be simple and perfect- you like the same
books, the same
music, even the same
art.
Then comes Christmas, and time to buy and decorate a tree. The shock and horror of finding out that this person you have loved and lived with is one of the unwashed heathens who prefer a Noble fir over a Douglas fir (or vice versa, I suppose) is almost unbearable. Even after some acceptable compromise, such as alternating years, has been reached, the issue of decorating the tree remains.
Such doctrinare issues as religion, politics, and prefered operating system can pale before those of tree selection and decoration because not only are they rooted in deep and meaningful childhood memories, but they are completely detached from any provable statements about the outside world and yet are firmly at the core of the issue of how a thing that will share your living room for several weeks shall look.
I am deeply comitted to traditional, representational, even somewhat folksy ornaments, while my wife tends to prefer the more abstract spheres and spun glass and wire. But here is where we've found compromise and even the moral of the story- she makes the abstract wire ornaments herself and the glass spheres are hand-me-downs in her family. Even in disagreement over style, the reasons we have for valuing the things we value are very compatible. If you can see the reasons behind someone's philosophy of Christmas tree decorating, you can learn more about the person. And in marriage, isn't that a goal in itself?