Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I love the decorations, the music, getting gifts for people, the positive spirit it induces in most people...all of it. I've had a couple of not-so-good Christmases in my life, but the reason for the season, and the spirit of the holiday always lifts me up. When I was a child I think I loved the music more than anything. I LOVED to sing Christmas carols and hymns. I knew all the words to all the songs by the time I was 3 or 4, and I STILL love the music. On any random day at my house you can walk in and catch me singing Christmas carols, or playing them on the piano, and it doesn't have to be December. When I was a teenager I used to start decorating my room in August, and buying gifts for everyone I knew. My mother was very musically talented, and performed many Christmas programs...you name it, if it involved singing and a keyboard, she was more than happy to share her talents with anyone who would listen at Christmas time.
In 1998 my mother passed away on Christmas. She was my best friend. She had lived 19 months with ovarian cancer, after being told she had 3 weeks at the most. The last time she was able to talk was on December 23rd, and she called me specifically to say good-bye, and tell me how much she loved me. She was VERY worried that she would die on Christmas Day, and therefore "ruin" all future Christmases for her loved ones. Depending what time zone we were in she died either the 25th or the 26th of December. In her time zone she made until 12:56 am on Dec. 26th. In MY time zone she died at 4 minutes before midnight, Christmas Day. She tried to hold out so the date wouldn't be, as she termed it, ruined for us. A further example of Mom alwayas thinking of others besides herself was that she had a cake for me on my birthday, which is a few days after Christmas. She knew she wouldn't last THAT long, and had told my step-dad to "make sure you don't forget her birthday with all that will be going on when I die. Make sure she has a cake." Little did she know her funeral would be on my birthday, and I'm sure she would have been upset, had she thought about it....probably would have held on to life a few more days, just so THAT wouldn't be in my mind every birthday I've had since.
However, losing my mom and best friend, hasn't ruined Christmas or my birthday at all. I never remember her sadly at this time of year. I don't think too much of the one year at the end of her life. I can't think of Christmas without thinking of the 26 other years I had with her. I hear her voice singing. I remember she and I always decorating our house to the hilt. I remember baking cookies with her. I remember the big, red bow she tied on her studio door, with a sign saying, "Do Not Open 'Till Christmas", and I always opened that door and spied through the presents hidden in there anyway. I remember caroling with her and others, I remember buying presents for people we'd never met before because she had heard of a family in need. I remember every year she and I would hand-make intricate, delicate egg-shell ornaments, spending hours together, seeing who could make the prettiest one of that particular year. I remember, from the time I was a very young girl, she and I were ALWAYS the "present wrappers" for the entire family. I remember her huge list of over 400 people I helped her mail out cards and personal letters to every year. Even in 1998, when she was too sick to write she made sure I completed the entire list for her.
This year, is a year of huge change. This year is probably the oddest Christmas I've ever had. I have not put up one single decoration, not even a tree. I have not sent out one, single card. I have not even bought my presents yet. I have some, that I bought, but not nearly like I usually do, and intend to at least get more bought later today. I have not made Christmas cookies, although I hope to get at least one kind made today. The few present I DO have didn't get wrapped until yesterday.
I haven't been setting very good Christmas memories this year for my daughters. I hope, though, that like my Christmas in 1998, this one won't be one they remember negatively. My girls have had wonderful Christmases in the past, and I pray my daughters and I have many more in the future. I have been feeling pretty badly about not doing things like usual this year, but I have come to realize that "different" deosn't mean it won't be "special" in it's own way.
I pray you ALL have a blessed Christmas.
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