I’ve been extremely melancholy and tender hearted these last few days. This will be my first Christmas without my Mom. When she passed away last March, we were all greatly saddened and yet happy for her to be released from her body that was making her unhappy. She was ready to go home and be reunited with Dad.
Our first Christmas without Dad was hard too, but for some reason, this year it’s super hard for me with Mom being gone. She loved Christmas so much. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first Christmas without at least one of my parents here.
I’ve probably talked about this before, but Christmas has always been a big deal for me…. as far as family goes. While the hustle and bustle and anticipation have always been fun, the most important thing of all was having family together. Our family traditions are what made me look forward to the Christmas season. As I get older, I realize just how important those family times are.
I was raised in a close family. At least those of us that lived around got together often. While raising my kids, we spent almost every Sunday evening at my parents home. We would gather for ‘cheeseies’ (a family tradition of an open faced broiled cheese sandwich) each week, spend time together and the cousins would play. It meant the world to me and was a priority in my mind.
At Christmas time we would gather each Christmas Eve. The evening would start with a big dinner; with tables and chairs strung everywhere as the family grew. Then we would gather in the living room and portray the Nativity with each of the kids acting out the parts. My daughter, Mandy, being the youngest girl (of only a handful of girls) in the family got the honor of playing Mary for many years. Our costumes always consisted of sheets, towels, scarfs and tinsel with the manger being a doll cradle and who knows what doll for the baby Jesus, unless there was a newborn in the family…. then they got the honored roll of being the Baby Jesus.
After acting out the Nativity, we would sing songs (sometimes my kids would be the entertainment since they participated in a kids performing group back then) and we would wait in anticipation for Santa’s arrival. We always tried to keep the kids distracted and occupied while we waited for his arrival.
Once Santa arrived through the front door, it was mayhem and excitement! He would sing a couple of songs with us and then reach in his big bag and call out the name of each of the kids one at a time. They would come sit on his lap and get their small gift from him. It was an opportunity for each child to have their photo taken with Santa by their parents. It was a joy to watch from year to year, the young kids go from being petrified of him to jumping on his lap. (And what a hoot to look back at the photos and see the styles we wore!) He would have us sing a few more songs and end with Jingle Bells as he left to ‘go to the next house’. What a fun tradition that was.
Then we would exchange gifts amongst cousins and adults (drawing names as the family got bigger). Then off to our own homes to get the children all snuggled in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing through their heads. Christmas Eve. The best part of Christmas for me growing up.
As my parents aged, they were getting tired of all the clean up…. plus the family growing with many great grand kids made it a tight fit for their home. We spent several years trying to do it in their church cultural hall. Then grand kids grew, started marrying people who had their own Christmas Eve traditions and it turned into a party at some local ‘event’ place (like a Roller Skating facility) one a night other than Christmas Eve for the last few years before my Dad passed.
Once Dad passed and Mom had had her stroke, she ended up needing 24 hour care and spent the last 6 years of her life in an Assisted Living facility. We were always able to reserve one of the rooms there to hold a family party, but it was never on Christmas Eve again. Too many family members with their own Christmas Eve traditions…. but none the less…. we gathered.
The last few Christmas Eve’s, my little family has spent the evening with my Mom at her Assisted Living place. Sometimes we sang for all the patients there…. but last year, we just spent time with her in her room and sang to her. She loved it. It meant so much to her. We always took the time to look through the Christmas album the family and made for my parents several years back with photos of all those great Christmas Eve’s. I’m feeling sad I don’t have that at my house this year.
I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself this year without her here to spend Christmas Eve with! My heart has been so tender these last few days. I’ve shed many tears missing her and Dad and those sacred traditions. I want so desperately to carry on some of those traditions in our family. It’s been hard because my children haven’t been married with kids of their own up to this point, so we haven’t had the little ones around to treasure those moments. I know it will come. Jon and Ali got married this year and I have BIG hopes of it all beginning soon. I just pray that it will become as important to them as it is to me.
Family is everything to me. I want to spend more time together than we do. I love them all so much. We are trying to carry on the larger gathering of the family for a Christmas party. I promised Mom we would. Though it won’t be till the first of the year…. we will still gather and enjoy each others company…. laugh at the White Elephant exchange and just be grateful for one another. As with anything in life, it gets harder and harder to make the schedule work for everyone to be there….. but we will do our best and miss those that can’t make it. And Mom will be happy we did.
I am SO grateful for parents who started and kept such special traditions in our family. The thing that amazes me the most is that none of the spouses of us siblings had a spouse with Christmas Eve family traditions. The party at the Bangerter home was the priority! And you darn well better be there! It wasn’t until the grandkids started getting married that we ran into conflicts with other family gatherings. We were blessed to go so many years without those conflicts.
I’m grateful for my family and want them to treasure this time of year as much as I do. I know Mom and Dad will be with us all in spirit, but I miss them so terribly much this time of year!
Much love to you all and may you have a blessed and wonderful Christmas with cherished loved ones by your side. And if they aren’t able to be with you…. may you be able to communicate with them all your love. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL…. but especially to you MOM!! May your first Christmas in Heaven with Daddy be one of your best! You can SEE and MOVE and SING! I love that….. it makes me so happy to think about that. Miss you tons!
I Am Grateful! How Are You?
I Am Grateful! How Are You? 