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.