Christmas Musings December 31st, 2020

I am doing my best this year to make Christmas fun and special for the kids (and for me too) and overall it’s been really good. We have Christmas shopped, wrapped gifts, baked cookies, crafted with friends, caroled at church, drove around looking at lights and playing Christmas light bingo, ate candy canes, watched Elf, went sledding, drank hot cocoa, had friends over, listened to lots of Christmas music…

The present moment is good and I’m really working on living in the present. Right now, it’s Christmas Eve, 1:30 in the afternoon and I’m laying in my bed with the heater on, listening to Christmas music on Alexa, and just taking some time to reflect. 

I almost feel guilty laying down on Christmas Eve, I mean there must be something else I need to be doing. But the gifts are wrapped, I grocery shopped this morning, and the ham is in the oven. The house is relatively clean (although that doesn’t really matter since Rob is the only one coming over, but still I like it clean and I can relax easier if things are tidy.)

There are so many things I am thankful for as we end probably one of the hardest years of our collective lives.

I am beyond grateful for Jesus Christ, without him I would be a mess. I’m grateful that his mercies are new every morning, and I am thankful for the godly family he has built around me and my children. He has truly proven (to me at least) that he will never leave us or forsake us.

I am so thankful for the children God has entrusted me with, my biological kids and my friends’ kids that have come to feel like my own - especially throughout these last nine months of isolation and quarantine. 

I am thankful for an affordable home to live in, electricity and heat to keep us warm, beds to sleep in, food on the table - I do not take these things for granted and my heart aches for those that don’t have these basic needs being met.

I’m thankful for my health, both physical and mental. The last few years have been met with challenges in both those areas and I’m happy to say that besides gaining some weight being stuck at home with almost everything shut down due to Covid, I have experienced surprisingly good health this year, and my heart and mind are finally feeling whole again after the divorce.

But the holidays are hard. There are lots of tough memories from holidays past. When I was 15 years old, I ran away from home a few days before Christmas. After my parents got divorced, Christmas wasn’t something to really look forward to (unless we were spending it in San Diego with my grandparents - those are my best Christmas memories.)

Sometimes I think my mom has never forgiven me for that. I’m sure that was tremendously hard for her, and although it was a very unhealthy and abusive environment that I was living in with her, I’m sure losing her daughter a couple days before Christmas was pretty traumatic. I’m sorry I put you through that if you’re reading this mom. I hope you have been able to forgive me for that, and the many other poor decisions I made as a broken and hurting child.

I don’t even remember Christmas’ much as a young adult, but after I found Jesus and started going to church, the meaning of the holiday changed and kind of reignited my holiday spirit.

But sad things still happened… 13 years ago Rob and I lost our first baby to a miscarriage just a few weeks before Thanksgiving and a few years later I had to put my dog down during the holidays. I had gotten him when I was only 17 years old and he had been through a lot of life by my side.

This year, because I chose to get divorced, I won’t get to spend Christmas day with all my kids. This morning Rob invited Kenton to go with him to his dads in eastern Oregon tomorrow and when given the choice between sledding with us, or going with his dad, he picked his dad. I’m so beyond grateful that he has a dad that is still in his life and wants to spend time with him. But I am sad. I’m sad that for the first time since our family began, we won’t all be spending it together. I’m sad that my kids have to choose between mom or dad, especially during the holidays.

But you know what’s different about this year’s sadness? I don’t feel guilty about feeling sad. For most of my life, uncomfortable feelings like sadness and grief were not OK, or were not looked upon or reacted to favorably. I was conditioned to feel guilt and shame around feeling sad, disappointment or discouragement. It was kind of a vicious cycle.

But this year especially, I have finally found freedom from that. Not only is it normal and OK to let yourself feel negative emotions, it’s actually healthy. So I’m going to have my moments of sadness, shed a tear here in there, (or maybe have a big ugly cry…) And then I’m going to get back to focusing on all the things I’m grateful for. Because those things far outweigh the negative!

So here’s to holiday traditions, old and new, and to all the blessings the Lord has bestowed on us, even in the midst of a global pandemic.

Merry Christmas!