After my last few months of moving out of state and my mother dying, I am content to hunker down for a period of wintering, grieving, and processing. I will have a small tree with some twinkle lights only. I find this is quite enough after every venture out for groceries or to the pharmacy is met with non stop Christmas music and tacky decorations galore. I will welcome this period of light and peace and pray for this broken world — but celebrate? Not as likely.
I can't agree more. I learned through divorce and out of state moving that my family holiday themes were fiction, or at least highly malleable. This year was Thanksgiving with old friends who never had a family-free holiday before and it was wonderful. A flight to see the nieces a couple weeks before Xmas arrives with that baggage premises to be just enough holiday/ family melding for me. Tradition is pretty much a myth.
Beautiful. Your pieces are so well-rounded and thorough. Thank you fur sharing. This year like last year my husband and I left the city we live in as his strained relationships with his young adult children who live within a couple miles but don’t reach out or respond to invitations. felt so lonely and desperate in past years. For me with no children it felt like rubbing my face in the misery and longing for children. These past 2 years have been wonderful. We stay busy with museums and opera and exercise and such this year. Life giving, connection with each other, feeding our minds and souls with fresh air and new experiences, thankful to have found a good way to live. There is an equation of sorts where I understand God sees my loss, He is the one who put it in my heart to want family gathered round, to have wanted a baby to give a bath to … and He is not a mean God who would put that in me only to not give it to me. And so I live with Faith, this is the life I have and by finding Joy even with my loss, I am living out my witness to God. Thank you Sue.
Thank you, Susan. That is beautiful. I'm so glad you found a way to spend a happy holiday. It can be so hard dealing with stepchildren, especially when you don't have any of your own. Now all we have to do is get through Christmas.
After my last few months of moving out of state and my mother dying, I am content to hunker down for a period of wintering, grieving, and processing. I will have a small tree with some twinkle lights only. I find this is quite enough after every venture out for groceries or to the pharmacy is met with non stop Christmas music and tacky decorations galore. I will welcome this period of light and peace and pray for this broken world — but celebrate? Not as likely.
Beth, I'm so sorry for your loss. You need to do what feels right for you. If that's a quiet time at home, that's perfectly fine.
I can't agree more. I learned through divorce and out of state moving that my family holiday themes were fiction, or at least highly malleable. This year was Thanksgiving with old friends who never had a family-free holiday before and it was wonderful. A flight to see the nieces a couple weeks before Xmas arrives with that baggage premises to be just enough holiday/ family melding for me. Tradition is pretty much a myth.
Beautiful. Your pieces are so well-rounded and thorough. Thank you fur sharing. This year like last year my husband and I left the city we live in as his strained relationships with his young adult children who live within a couple miles but don’t reach out or respond to invitations. felt so lonely and desperate in past years. For me with no children it felt like rubbing my face in the misery and longing for children. These past 2 years have been wonderful. We stay busy with museums and opera and exercise and such this year. Life giving, connection with each other, feeding our minds and souls with fresh air and new experiences, thankful to have found a good way to live. There is an equation of sorts where I understand God sees my loss, He is the one who put it in my heart to want family gathered round, to have wanted a baby to give a bath to … and He is not a mean God who would put that in me only to not give it to me. And so I live with Faith, this is the life I have and by finding Joy even with my loss, I am living out my witness to God. Thank you Sue.
Thank you, Susan. That is beautiful. I'm so glad you found a way to spend a happy holiday. It can be so hard dealing with stepchildren, especially when you don't have any of your own. Now all we have to do is get through Christmas.