Heidi Goehmann

My family has an affection for certain shows. Many of you do as well, I'm sure. You don't simply have a show you watch, but you have shows that are "your shows”. You may not rush home to watch them, like in the days before DVRs and streamed TV, but something has happened culturally where we all gained a possessiveness to our shows. At our house, we like Star Trek of various kinds, Young Indiana Jones, and Sherlock. We get our reality show fix in the form of The Amazing Race. You can probably make your own list. It maybe slightly less nerdy, but I bet you have a list.

The month of February in our house comes without a whole lot of pomp and circumstance. We celebrate the snow probably more than we celebrate anything. However, every year when about February 12 rolls around, I think, “Maybe we should do something for Valentine’s Day. Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to get some presents? But presents cost money. That’s not good. Well, dinner then. Ooooo—what if it was at a fancy restaurant and we got all dressed up? That would be exciting! And what if there was a horse-drawn carriage ride, or a singing telegram guy, or . . . yes, that’s it, what if there were diamonds?!!!!”

My husband and I come from very different families. Like most newlyweds, we rooted around for what traditions we might maintain, where we needed to be intentional, and what ways we might burst out of our families’ molds and do something new. We read books. We prepared and enriched. We asked lots of questions of mentors and friends.

When I was young, my parents taught me a great distinction that I now appreciate as a therapist a whole lot more than as a five-year-old. My parents enjoyed a good debate, and they were careful to distinguish between an argument and a “discussion.” Discussion is often a more accurate word for what we think of as a marital disagreement. It’s a difference of opinion, something that needs to be hashed out as a couple or a family, a normal part of the process. There isn’t something wrong with you as a couple if you don’t see eye to eye on every pinpoint of day-to-day life. Living a life well together means being vulnerable enough with one another to share our deepest opinions in a safe place. As well as being able to say “I see it differently” about where the trash can should go, without concern for judgment and backlash.

Every year I stand in front of a rack of shirts and ask myself the same question, “Which one would he like?” I wander around the store and find lavish gifts like dark chocolate and fancy deodorant. I wrap them up and place them under the tree or in my husband’s stocking. Occasionally I get wild and buy him a can of processed potato chips or something decorated in camouflage for hunting season.

Many of us have put up our Christmas tree by this point in the Advent season. We’ve wrestled it from the woods or our basements, matched color-coded branches or poured water in the stand, strung up the lights, and added a touch of festive to the mediocre green and brown.

We are a celebrity-obsessed culture. Every time we walk up to the grocery store checkout line, we are inundated with celebrity information. So-and-so got a new hairdresser, this other person wore it better, another person newly embraced religion, Brad and Angelina took their kids to the park, and so on and so forth.

Roofs are something we take for granted. I'd venture to say that most of us have never lived in a house without a roof. I was recently visiting an area that had been hit by a major tornado a couple of years ago. My friend told me the story of one family who had hidden deep inside their basement, praying for protection from the storm's rage. Protection they were granted, but when they walked up their basement stairs they found nothingness, no walls, no roof, just bright sky. Can you imagine how disconcerting that must have been to find no cover and no protection, and not knowing when the next storm would come? This is a roof's entire purpose—to cover and protect. A roof keeps out rain and snow, tree leaves and hail, winter's coldness and summer's blazing sunlight. It separates what needs to stay outside and what is intended to be inside.

1+1=2 and 2+1=3 and so on and so forth. . . simple math, right? Yes, of course it is. But what happens when 1+1=4 and 1+1=6? Mathematically, it’s an impossibility. In the world of families, however, one plus one does not always equal two. In the world of families, blended is not only common, but it may also be the new norm. Mom and Dad get married, and whether one or both of them come with children, life doesn’t just get complicated—it starts out complicated!

A little known fact: our family enjoys the show iCarly. It's probably considered old at this point, but offer up a reasonably clean show with clever characters, for free on Amazon Prime, and you've got yourself some committed Goehmann fans. There is no reason you would need to know or care about this little known fact, save for a thirty-second clip of one episode, involving high emotions and Mexican sponges.