BUCKING THE SYSTEM: CHRISTMAS CHEER GIVES WAY TO VISIONS OF LOVE

Okay, so Christmas Day has passed. As usual, it was a wonderful holiday for me with lots of sentimental Kodak moments and plenty of good gift-giving going around.

There was also a Little House on the Prairie movie marathon on WTBS, and yes, my family watched all six movies. Christmas can't get any better than that.

Jerry had a great Christmas. He didn't know it, but while he slept all snug in his bed at his grandparents' house, Santa and several elves were busy until about 3 a.m. getting all of his gifts put together. Unfortunately, Santa and at least one other elf are the kind of guys who believe that "if it don't fit, we'll use the hammer to force it," which made two female elves very, very grouchy.

In fact, it was suggested more than once that next year Santa pay the workshop elves an extra $10 and let them do the assembly work.

Although I really enjoyed it, Christmas isn't the focus of my column. That holiday is over, and I need to turn my attention to the next calendar event in view. No, it isn't New Year's Eve -- it's my and Patrick's anniversary.

Now, I'm talking about the real deal here. It's not the anniversary of the day we met, or of our first date, or of the day we moved in together, although he'd better remember ALL of those dates.

On Tuesday Patrick and I will celebrate our second wedding anniversary, and it's a significant day for us. It means we've got 48 years left on those 50-year marriage leases we took out Dec. 30, 1995.

It also means we need to reflect on our marriage and what we mean to each other. We've changed a lot since we first met, and discussing those changes is healthy. We both believe God made us to be together, but we know we have to do the work if we plan to stay together.

I guess it was love that first day I saw Patrick: It had to be. That's the only reason I can give for having stayed until 5 a.m. at a colorful bar in Illinois talking to a man I had just met.

I just knew it was love.

When I first met Patrick he shaved twice a week and never stayed around long enough to get on my nerves. He was a simple guy who wore jeans and t-shirts and ate hamburgers and pizza. He worked two jobs and opened every door in my path.

When I would think about him I would think of this polite, soft-spoken, super-romantic guy who liked to read as much as I did.

I'm telling you, it was love.

Those days are long gone. Now I'm lucky if he shaves for special occasions, and one of his favorite things to do is to get me up at 7 a.m. by singing "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens." His tastes are more expensive now and include steak and Eddie Bauer clothing, and if I want to get inside I'd better open my own door.

My visions of Patrick are now much clearer. Anyone who knows him knows he was faking when he put on that polite, soft-spoken act, and when I think about him now all I see are unbalanced checkbooks, nasty-looking souse sandwiches, and of course, his fingernail-eating truck, the Rump-Shaker-Shaker.

Wait a minute, I said it was love, didn't I?

Well, actually, yes it is. Because underneath it all, he's still my Patrick, my P.L., my man. He's the only man I know who volunteers to wash the dishes and my feet, and he actually enjoys going shopping with his wife.

He's also still very romantic -- enough to like long drives in the rain, and enough to hide an ankle bracelet and a picture of our family in my purse before he put it under the Christmas tree.

Like I said before, it was love.

Patrick is strange, and he can be annoying, but he has a great heart. He's a pretty good husband and he learns quickly. All in all, I don't regret my decision to take him off his family's hands. I guess he's a keeper.

Besides, I know it's love.

~Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian