Christmas…

When I was a child I used to LOVE Christmas. All the excitement, the decorations, everything! It was all so magical! I continued to love Christmas when I became an adult and when I married Tony I vowed that our children would get the over the top Christmas every year!

Then we had the triplets. Obviously Christmas of 2006 was toned down. However I was determined to make Emily’s Christmas the best she could have. I sang carols to her, we had her open gifts and stockings. Then she died. And with her, went a big chuck of what I loved about Christmas. The songs suddenly didn’t remind me of the holiday season, but of the daughter I lost. Max was born and I tried my best, but honestly I have never given him the Christmas I always dreamed I would give my children. Then with the cancer diagnosis, and me starting Chemo right before Christmas (within days of), I just sort of gave up.

This year we got back from our trip down to Florida and Tony had had enough. He wants our boys to have the Christmas that we both always wanted them to have. So I put aside my grief, and some other issues that I had, and I tried my best with our limited budget, and supplies. It was a bit tough as we got back from the trip already into advent, but we pulled out our sad Christmas tree that we got 12 years ago. Max tried to sit on as a 2 year old, so it is all sad on one side. The lights have mostly went out on it too. So we wrapped around other lights… though sadly most of our other lights didn’t work either. Yeah it was a comedy of errors for a while here! Finally we got our tree lit. Max took it upon himself to take out some home made ornaments and put them up high, so “Nathaniel will not get them”. We noticed that our tree topper would only light on occasion too. Yep, we had Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree!

We also needed stockings. Max’s was lost. We think Fred (our elf on a shelf) might have taken it, as we couldn’t find either of them! So I set out making stockings for both boys. Tony also insisted that we wrap gifts. This is something I really don’t do as I don’t like the waste, but if not now, then when. So I spent time wrapping gifts and placing them under our tree.

All of this took time. I also was trying to do some schooling with Max to make me feel like he was in a good spot for a break. I achieved all that I set out to do, though next year our Christmas should feel a bit more “polished”. I am making a list of things I would like, and hopefully it will happen. We did get a new tree this year in an after Christmas sale.

So while this month has been short on post to the blog, do not think it was all fun and games here. It was anything but! However I have decide to do Project 365 (actually 366) in 2016. So if you are a follower of the blog, you should see much more stuff in the new year!

Max’s German Christmas Program