The wedding anniversary I nearly missed

IT’S December.

I love it when December arrives.

It’s like being on a rollercoaster that has finally rolled around to the big drop, and as you look down the curdling slope you think: oh my God I’m not ready for this.

Except that this year I am ready.

Oh, I haven’t bought any presents yet, nor written a Christmas card. But I am wearing a grin and if anyone smiles back I shall yell yo ho ho!

Not, however, because my infuriating sense of bonhomie has anything to do with Christmas.

Because today is my wedding anniversary.

What makes this really special is that I am celebrating with my wife.

A year ago the likelihood of this was improbable. Nine months ago it was impossible. I told you about it at the time.

It was only March then, But even in March, as I watched bits falling off our marriage like tiles off a space shuttle I thought: Christmas will be a bummer.

I mean would I buy her a present? Would she buy me a present? Would we get together with all the kids, or would they move between the two of us trying to avoid any insensitive references to the fact that we were behaving like well, kids.

This is the future I saw when I gazed into my crystal balls-up.

But I would have been wrong. I am at home. The fridge is covered in little notes from our children and grandchildren with hints about Christmas presents they’d like.

We’re making lists, my wife and I, of what we’ll get them and what Santa Claus will bring them. We are dividing up Christmas duties. My daughters said I should make the mince pies because it’s sexual stereotyping to think that it always has to be the wife’s job.

My wife said that depended on whether you wanted mince pies that were edible.

They wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas. And I suddenly realised — I don’t want a thing. That is to say, nothing else.

I put it to you that if you want a truly remarkable Christmas present, it’s not a laptop computer, nor a plasma screen TV, nor even a BMW.

If you really want to tax the skills of Santa’s little elves, ask him for someone who will live with you for 16 hours of every workday and 24 hours a day at weekends for 30 years.

Ask him for someone who will play cook, nurse, adviser, laundress, personal assistant, and even courtesan to you for the kind of salary that would make an Indian rag-trade sweatshop worker look like a millionaire.

He’ll assume you’ve been at the brandy and leave you socks instead.

But that’s what I’ve got.

I have a partner who is infinitely patient, infinitely good humoured, infinitely willing and infinitely right. Not always at the same time, and not always with me (except perhaps for the last item).

I am not trying to pretend she’s perfect, but she’s perfectly human. And she possesses one quality that sets her apart from ordinary human beings.

She believes in me. Yes, I know. It’s extraordinary, but it seems to be true.

Once again, for the 30th time, the roller coaster, with both of us on board, is about to take the plunge into Christmas.

I can’t really take it seriously when people whinge to me about the commercialisation of Christmas, or inappropriate toys for kids, or because the Christmas cards are in the shops earlier every year.

That would be like dropping down the roller coaster slowly. On your own.

A rollercoaster is a waste of time on your own. The whole point of a rollercoaster is that you shudder down them so fast you can’t draw breath, and you stumble off at the bottom trembling, laughing (sometimes hysterically), and exhilarated.

Together.