Operation Finding Christmas Spirit

Christmas PJ party, Christmas Eve. He's sooooo loving the Santa onsie!!!! 

It's not that I don't want to do Christmas this year.

I flipping love Christmas.
I love everything about it.
I can't get enough of carols - and if some old school, Sinatra type crooner is singing them, even better.
It's not the lights or the tinsel that I'm against this year.
Again. .. love it all.

Christmas, Newcastle 2012.. see....I love Christmas.

It's the simple matter of what Christmas had come to mean to us.
We married on the 11th December 2004- hottest day in the history of Mackay summers.
And Christmas that first year was about us being a family.

Me and him.
And by the time Christmas 2005 rolled around,  well we had a 10 week old bundle of blue eyed perfection.
And Christmas was about us being a family.
Me, him and our son.

More Christmases and more babies.
Christmas became pure joy.
Nothing can replace the satisfaction of watching the delight in your child's face when they see that tree and the wrapped boxes beneath it on Christmas morning. The joy of giving. 

Yes... I love Christmas.
It calms something within me.
For a moment everything is ok.
And God is on the throne.
And He gave us Jesus.
Yes...  I love Christmas.

Christmas Eve, Mackay 2013

I love the tradition that has been weaved into this season. 

We valued our family traditions.

The Christmas Eve family movie and matching pj's. 

Sheldon's epic Christmas cake.

But right now. 

A month out...

Christmas is a sharp reminder that me and him can't revel in being our little family this year.

There's no epic,  month long preparation for his Christmas cake.

Good lord,  I don't even know the color code system to set up the stupid tree. I would 'try' to help,  but he would just mutter something about me being in the way and being a perfectionist (!!???!!) so I'd leave them to it. 

It was us.
Christmas was us..

Christmas lunch...a few years ago.

Waiting to open presents 2012. How little they look!!!

And now.
Well.
I guess it's them.

Our bundles of joy.
They really are still just little kids.
They have handled this year and all of it's pain so marvelously... but they are still just my little boys.

And they want the tree.
And the lights.
And the corny carols.
They want gingerbread men and matching pj's.

They want Christmas. 

Christmas tree, 2013

Even though it's the first one.

The first one without their daddy... Their daddy who would carry them to bed on every Christmas Eve, after they'd stuffed their bellies with gingerbread men and hot chocolate, after they'd tried to stay awake and watch the Christmas movie.

I'm aware that time will be our friend and Christmases future will grow gradually easier, and perhaps I'll bounce into some future Christmas season with all of the joy I can muster.

But this first... Well, to be honest it feels like a bag of salt on a raw wound.

It feels like a spotlight... A glaring spotlight.. has been cast on the fact that we don't have him here. 

I walked past the mens shirts at Myer yesterday and found myself holding a shirt, examining it. I was tired, and my brain was not functioning at 100%.. I know this because I was holding the shirt, thinking about buying it for Sheldon.. To wear for lunch on Christmas Day.

I put the shirt back.

And I realised that it's a case of muscle memory.

My brain and my responses to Christmas are so strongly tied up in who he was and what we had created.

Christmas was about our family... Me, him and our boys.

I'm retraining my brain and my responses to the sound and the feel of Christmas. 

There is a grief in this season that is tempered by the joy that Christmas demands.

And I see that joy.

I see kindness still... Always kindness.

In the way I've had offers of Christmas company and the suggestions to find this elusive Christmas spirit.

I am finding it.

I know where it is.

It's just a bit of a painful discovery this year.

But my little boys want Christmas.

And lights.

And the tree.

And gingerbread houses.

All I want is a phone call from heaven.
Not too much to ask surely?
Just one phone call.
So I can ask him how to set up the bloody Christmas tree.