Who Stole Christmas? or Being Grown Up Sucks!

Last Christmas I went back to Canada. I wanted it to be so much more than it was. I wanted it to be a wonderful combination of the best of my childhood Christmas memories and the new ones I was making with my own children but alas, it just wasn't.

The Christmas season has always filled me with delight. Take snow, for example. Is there anything more beautiful than clean, white snow? It makes the world look perfect. Everything sparkles, everything is magical, everything is special. I relish every twinkling light, every strand of garland, every homemade gaudy ornament from my childhood, every Christmas song on the radio, EVERYTHING. I'm also a girl who likes to keep family traditions. Perhaps because I grew up largely without an extended family near me. I adhere strictly to the routine we fell into and balk at the idea of doing anything differently.

But, last year WAS different. Everything was different. With my Dad gone there was an emptiness that I was certainly expecting but there was also the harsh reality that the magic depended on me. It wasn't going to "just happen". All that sparkly specialness was now my responsibility and it lost some of its appeal. I realised that the Christmas feeling I was missing didn't "just happen", it took a family over 30 years to create it and hold it close and give it reverence. A family that is no longer whole. A huge part of us is missing and therefore, there is a large, gaping hole in Christmas. Don't get me wrong. I still like the magic and it's not that I'm not up to it, I just don't like being the grown up sometimes...especially at Christmas. I WILL make it special for my family. We will find our own way and have our own traditions. We will surround ourselves with friends and family and have good times together. But it won't be the same. Christmas will never be the same and I am mourning the loss of it. That sounds so melodramatic but the truth often does. I am now waiting, with baited breath for that 'feeling'. Maybe last year was a fluke. Maybe last year's melancholy was just because it was my first Christmas back in Canada since Dad died.

The snow is here now. There is a thick blanket of it on the ground and it is falling in big, heavy flakes. I can see the twinkly lights from our Christmas tree sparkling out of the corner of my eye and I realise that I have butterflies in my stomach. Perhaps the spirit of Christmas will find me this year. I hope so.

If I could be someone else...

If I could be someone else it would be a combination of Nigella Lawson, Bree VandeKamp, Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Ingalls (from L H on the P). Just think, I would be a dream in the kitchen, my house would be spotless, I could sew and be really practical AND have enough money not to worry about anything.

The perfect woman.

Smile.

Questions

Max asks me a lot about God.

"Where is heaven?"

"Who is God, exactly?"

"How did he make people?"

"Why can't we talk to people after they go to heaven?"

"What is a person's spirit?"

"How can it be inside you but we can't see it?"

"What if I have to go to heaven first and you and Daddy and Isla don't get to go yet? I don't want to be alone there. Will they let you come with me?"

He doesn't dance around the tough questions. He is so honest and direct that I feel he was sent here to teach me. He makes me examine my own beliefs through his eyes. He doesn't accept 'easy' answers and frankly, he deserves more than that from me. He makes me think harder and dig deep. He is helping me along my journey and I am ever grateful that he is here, a little hand I can hold. I only hope that I can be as honest and direct with my answers. I feel that his spiritual education is my most important job and I want to do it really, really well.