Five More Sleeps

There are officially five (5) more sleeps until Christmas day. This will be my 61st Christmas and I am sad to say, that like everyone else in the world, I have often let the commercialism of the holiday, override The Reason for the Season. I guess it is all part of living in an ever-growing secular world, where things have become more important than the true reason we celebrate Christmas. Like most things, it's not rocket science. The purpose of December 25th is quite simply spelled out for us in the name...Christ-mas, but apparently even in all of its simplicity, we still forget. But I digress. 

So as a kid, my parents if not on the same page with anything else, always had a cease fire during Christmas and we always celebrated Christmas together as a family. Yes I know, we were a strange bunch, and trust me, my divorced parent's weird relationship was never lost on me. 

The first Christmas that I actually remember was in "the horrible house." I must have been about 6 or 7 and I was sick. Really sick. I had the flu and the pictures of me that Christmas show that I looked like walking death. I was pale and my eyes were dark. I looked awful and I imagine I felt awful too, but I don't remember that. 

That Christmas, my not-so-adoring grandma, and my always-adoring grandpa came to our house Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad were either together at the time or at the very least, together for the evening. For most of my life, we always celebrated Christmas on Christmas morning, but for whatever reason, that year it was on Christmas Eve. I have glimpses of memory of my grandma telling me I looked awful (duh, I was sick) and my grandpa trying to make me smile. Our little Christmas tree was in our den area and Mom told me that I needed to go to my room and play for a while. I must have felt bad enough to be compliant, and in a bit, I was called back out, to find that during my time in my room, Santa had arrived. I remember being upset that I had missed him. If only I had not been so compliant. 

The only gift I remember getting that year was a doll that was about three and a half feet tall. She was nearly as tall as me. She had some kind of mechanism in her that if you held her hand, she could kinda, sorta walk with you. I must have liked her a lot (although my history with dolls is long and sorted and a story for another time). I had that doll for many years, and during that time I gussied her up a bit, at one point cutting her bangs to a very fashionable (NOT), one-quarter of an inch. Not to worry though, later in her life, my brother Andy got a hold of her and appropriated the Native American culture all over her face. He also had a Native American kid's headdress that he adorned her with. He thought her a masterpiece, but looking back I think one, he watched too many westerns, and two if it happened now, he would most definitely have been canceled. 

The next year was another Christmas Eve celebration, this time at my grandparent's house. I was not sick this particular year and along with us, Aunt May, Uncle Eldrid and Nancy were all there. I remember this being a fun Christmas because Nancy was there and I got an entire Barbie Kitchen. It was teal and gold and I loved it. I played with it for years. 

A bittersweet Christmas that I remember was my grandpa's last Christmas. He was dying from prostate cancer and to keep him from being put in "a home" in his last months, my mom took him in. Yes, my mom and dad were long divorced by this time, but being the strange family that we were, Mom turned the guest bedroom into my grandpa's room and had a hospital bed brought in. When Grandpa came to live with us, so did my dad and grandma. It was a really strange setup, and definitely a story for another time, but we had Grandpa one last Christmas. 

Grandpa's bedroom was upstairs (we no longer lived in the horrible house), and he never came downstairs, except for that Christmas day. Aunt May and Nancy came over, (Uncle Eldrid had sadly passed by then), and our house was full. Having all the people there seemed to make it festive and having Grandpa there, sitting down in the living room and opening gifts with us, made it beyond special. 

I was about 11 this particular Christmas and even I could tell how hard coming down those stairs had been for him, but we listened to Christmas music and opened gifts and I remember knowing that this would never happen again. I was not wrong. 

When we moved to Mulvane, Mom became Christmas-obsessed. She would start the day after Thanksgiving, and it would take her a full week to decorate. She had someone make her an eight-foot manger and the outside was decorated with a beautiful lighted nativity. On the inside, however, it looked like how I always imagined Santa's house would look. We had decorations that dated back to the 50s and every year Mom got more. She also saved every toothpaste box Santa, and Christmas artwork masterpiece that Andy and I brought home from school. Every cabinet, wall, stairway, and end table was covered in everything from the beautiful to the gaudy. 

Our windows had Santa and a mix of mechanical dolls that moved, peering out. Our tree was always 8.5 feet and had every available inch covered with bulbs....and this is where my complete and total dislike for Christmas decorating came into play. Early on, I wanted to help decorate and was so excited to help with the tree, but after breaking several of Mom's (prized) bulbs, my services were no longer needed or appreciated. IF she dared let me help, it was under close supervision which took all of my creativity away. Because of Mom's extreme Christmas OCD, rather than fighting with me, she started decorating the tree while I was at school. Guess what? I didn't care! If the tree got decorated and I didn't have to get yelled at in the process.....cool! Andy's decorating experiences with Mom were much different. I think he had the same love for the process that she did and he had a gentler spirit and touch when it came to her prized bulbs. 

The Christmas's we had in Mulvane, were always so fun. Maybe it was because we had finally found a place we truly called home, and we had friends and events that made the season amazing. I remember caroling with my friends, Christmas parties, and going to midnight Mass. On Christmas morning, my dad always showed up, and we unwrapped our gifts and then had Thanksgiving dinner all over again. It was here we grew up, grew as a family, and started many traditions that I still have today. 

My first Christmas which was abjectly sad for me, was the Christmas of 1983. I had lost the person that I considered the love of my life. We had plans for the future, we were in love, but then like happens with many young college romances, it was just over. My heart was broken and being my first love and my first heartbreak, I was beyond miserable. I remember very little of that Christmas other than I cried day and night. I am sure I was a joy for my family and that I made that Christmas oh-so-special for them too. 

As Andy and I grew up and moved away, we started our own families and traditions. On my first Christmas with my husband Tim, we had no money. I was pregnant with Zachary and a week before Christmas, we had no gifts under the tree. My older son Wesley heard me talking to Tim about how sad I was that we had nothing under the tree. He was a sweet soul at eight years old, and I walked into the living room to find that he had taken all of his stuffed animals and placed them under the tree. He said, "Now we have something under the tree." It looked beautiful and I had to leave the room to keep from bursting into tears in front of him. Miracle of miracles, Santa came through, as well as Tim's over time, and we were able to have a few gifts after all. 

The Christmas of 2000, David was in the NICU. He had been there for three months already and he had another two months to go. By Christmas, he was doing well and we were just working on him gaining enough weight to leave the hospital. Most of that season was spent going back and forth daily to the NICU, but we did break away long enough to have Christmas Eve with my mom and dad at Andy's house. 

The Christmas of 2001, I had just lost Tim, six months earlier. I can honestly say that I have no memory whatsoever of that Christmas. Then the Christmas of 2002, I lost my mom on December 22nd. The only thing that saved that Christmas for me was that my Uncle Pat and Aunt Rita were there. They had come to see my mom in the hospital, but she passed before they could get there. So instead of turning around and going back to MO to spend Christmas with their family, they stayed and helped heal our family. Their kids will never know how much their sacrifice of not spending Christmas with their parents meant to us. It is something that I will never forget. 

The Christmas of 2003, I was living back in my childhood home. It was the home that in so many ways had healed me as a child and miraculously, would heal me again as an adult. It is here where I, my kids, and now my grandkids have celebrated every Christmas since. Yes, I still hate decorating, but with a little help from my friends, it always gets done, and I always enjoy it when it is.

This year, my heart hurts as Andy is never too far from my mind, and it is to honor his memory that I was able to decorate this year. I think about him almost daily and I try to remember all of our childhood Christmas's with Mom and Dad and him and I. Christmas was always a high point for our family. 

I know we are not special this year. We have the same issues as everyone else. Money is tight if not non-existent, we are grieving, and we have stress, struggles, and speed bumps a plenty. We also have each other and one of the family's best gifts this Christmas is the upcoming birth of a new addition. Zachary and his girlfriend are going to be first-time parents in July. I also once again, get to see the joy and excitement of the season through my grandkid's eyes, and I am grateful that for another Christmas, we are here together, safe and sound. 

This year I have turned on the Christmas music and blared it daily (something I never do) and made my grandkids listen and learn. There is pretty much no Christmas song, old or new that they don't know. We have gone and looked at lights as a family, and started spending more time together doing fun things and enjoying each other's company. I think this year of all years, we are critically aware of how short life can be and just how fast time flies. 

I have also shut out the noise of the commercialism of the season and found myself looking towards both the crib and the cross more and more, and focusing on the birth of the Christ child. I think this alone has done more for my healing than anything else. 

So yeah five more sleeps and Christmas will be here, and as Christmas's go, I hope that the kids and grandkids remember this one, for the music, the laughter, and the fact that we were once again given the gift of being together and sharing the joy and memories of not just the day, but also, all the days leading up to it. After all, not everyone gets the miracle that we have as a family. 

I want to wish any of you who read this, a very Merry Christmas. I hope your heart is wrapped up in the beautiful Christmas Season and that you can share love and joy with your own families.

Happy Birthday baby Jesus.

Until next time.....