Networks began running them this week, and I began the annual ritual of talking to myself each time they appear. I tell myself that glitter and glamour, sparkle and big budgets do not imply that the players love each other more than the love most of us experience in our own marriages. And because I may never experience a truly extravagant event does not mean I have not lived and loved with great depth and uniqueness.

When I take my focus off the TV and move it over to the people who inhabit my world, I realize that very few of my friends have been presented Yuletide gifts with great bling. I remind myself that TV scenarios, packaged in 30-second scenes, are not only prefabricated but also unreachable for a whole lot of us who live modestly—even during Christmas. Besides all that, I reason, a great number of us cannot possibly look that good, capture such poetry in a sentence, or justify spending a goodly portion of our savings. Our lives are not defined by clarity, cut, and color.

I am talking, of course, about the commercials portraying two beautiful people, exchanging diamonds to celebrate their love at Christmas. I can only guess how many times, over the period of a typical holiday season, we will be told that if our spouses love us right they will make the reservations, order the champagne, and present us with a trio of gems representing our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.

What is real, based on my experiences, are the charming ways I have been loved during the last 24 years.

One year I received a five-foot long salmon pillow, because everyone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, I was informed, should be able to watch TV with their head resting on a big, soft salmon. Another year I was taken on a long scavenger hunt, behind nativity scenes and under mistletoe, to discover a fishing rod—stuck up in the Christmas tree. Are you detecting a theme from my husband, the biologist?

And there have been the appliance gifts. The French coffee press is wonderful and it does great justice to my freshly ground coffee. I also truly like the meat grinding attachment for my Kitchen Aide mixer. It came in especially handy a couple of weeks ago when a chili recipe called for ground venison.

I am also fond of those fuzzy gifts that have find their way under our Christmas trees. One year I received slippers that looked like raccoons. Then there was the time I was given a hot water bottle resembling a bear cub. It gets two thumbs up when I need a quick warm up. And Jack, the yellow lab puppy who arrived last Christmas with a red bow, was honestly the cutest and softest of all the fuzzy gifts. When I looked into his dark eyes, smelled his puppy breath, and ran my hands over his smooth, domed head, I knew then that love doesn’t get any better than a puppy.

I did not, however, always have the ability to translate these representations of love into contentment. Early on in our marriage I determined we would create the best marriage on the planet. I understood that my husband and I had been blessed with a gift from God, for we had shared a love for each other that began when we were youngsters. I also understood, even back in those early years, that to keep our love intact we would need to work at it.

I determined that a few Christian books would keep us on track. I dutifully purchased them from our local bookstore and highlighted the parts I believed pertained to us. I discussed strategies and expectations with Matt and regularly compared what happened in our marriage with those things portrayed in the books.

For some months I worried and agitated. What the authors presented as the right ways to order our Christian marriage did not always feel right to us. Yet the images were strong and because we were initially so inexperienced, I worried we were not heading in the right direction. Even though Matt would say to me on occasion, “That’s just not us, Joan!” I worried that we were headed for trouble if we did not resemble in all ways the portrait Christian marriage experts painted.

Then God drew near, to fill our doubting hearts with appreciation for our uniqueness. Best of all, we learned that we did not have to work so hard. Contentment would come if we asked for it. We learned how meaningful it is to be inventive and look for love in each other, appreciating what had brought us together in the first place. We learned there is freedom when you define love and personal style in your own ways.

So let us turn our eyes away from all those images that bring us doubt or attempt to belittle what is wonderful about our lives, however simple those elements may be. Let us look, instead, to the One who loves us without ceasing and in so many, distinctive ways. His lessons in love will last into eternity and bring joy to our upcoming Christmas season.