Through my Mother's Eyes.

This Christmas season has been particularly hard for me. I am not sure exactly why. I don't know if it is because everything has changed or I am turning into the Grinch the older I get. This year holidays are not the same. With Sam getting older and starting to understand we are starting to create our own family traditions. While new traditions for our little family are great I still yearn for things the way they were.

I have really been trying to be the AWESOME holiday Mom for Sam that my Mom was for me. Christmas was her thing. I would sarcastically say my mother began preparing for Christmas in June and July but if I think really hard I am sure I will remember that sometimes she did. I was really sad after Thanksgiving. I do not know if it was because we did not go home and I was home sick for my family or if it was because the meal I prepared was not as good as it is when there are many women crammed into the kitchen preparing it.

I have kicked it into high gear getting stuff done. In a way it makes me feel closer to her. I love looking at wrapping paper and this Christmas it has been my secret addiction. I have kept it under control though. I had paper left over from the years past but most of it did not survive the move. I had to get Sam a couple rolls of his favorites- Mickey Mouse and Handy Manny and then I got a few rolls of paper I thought was pretty. I could sit and wrap presents for hours. In fact I did and when I had nothing left to wrap I felt like I needed to go shopping to get more stuff to wrap. It is a sickness really.

We never got around to buying stocking for here at the house. We all have a stocking at Dad's house and that is where Santa comes so we never bought any. This year I decided that I was going to go through all of the fabric that I got when Mom died. She used to make Christmas Sweatshirts and had tons of Christmas fabric. I found a piece that had the pattern for a Santa apron that was dated 1983. I cut it up and made Sam a stocking. To me it is better than any stocking we could have bought him. It means something. Years from now he will have it and know that his mother made it for him using fabric that belonged to his grandmother. Maybe he will be as sentimental as I am and think it is awesome.

Something I realized as I was hunched over the ironing board and sewing machine is that I remember my Mother sitting and doing the same thing around Christmas. After I finished Sam's stocking I realized that the BELIEVE one I use and the cheap crap one we have for Stephen don't really don'xt go together so I am making both of us one to coordinate.

Doing things like this makes me feel closer to her.

Holiday Depression is in the Air Mixed with Peppermint, Pine, Gingerbread, and Cinnamon of Course.

We had a good Thanksgiving at home. Stephen's mom flew in and stayed with us and I cooked everything from my Thanksgivings past. We had so much left over that we finally had to draw a line and say enough is enough- NO MORE LEFT OVERS!

We put the mother in law and Sam in bed and ventured out to stand in line at Toys'r us at 10:45.

We got in at midnight and we were out by 12:30. We got some really great stuff and then headed out to sit in line at target until they opened at 5. Since we live a block away from Target we took shift going home for more coffee and potty breaks and to check on the boy. We had a great time sitting in the the cold and meeting people that were just as crazy as we are.

Friday I put my tree up and got it decorated and a few gifts wrapped and stacked under it. That is when it all set in. Christmas has not been the same the past couple of years this year will be 3 to be exact. This year is harder than usual and I do not know why. I don't know if it is because I am away from my family - away from home- away from her presence.

Our last Christmas with Mom I was big fat and pregnant with Sam. I sat in the floor in the living room and wrapped presents until my fingers hurtand legs swelled up to the point they were thighs connected to ankles. We would get up and have our coffee, get dressed and then leave the house to go battle the crowd at the mall trying to finish up Christmas shopping. I can not even begin to tell you how many hours we spent at Hobby Lobby. We would go walk around and look, touch, or break (sometimes all three) everything we came in contact with. I would finally have to put my pregnant sausage of a foot down and say I HAVE TO EAT AND I NEED TO SIT DOWN. We would head towards the door and pay for anything we had in the basket go sit down and eat somewhere and then go back to finish where we had left off. She had me decorate the tree. She laid on the couch under a blanket with Phoebe on her lap and told me where things went. During her last days she told us that I would be the one to decorate the tree because she taught me how. Christmas was so important to her that she actually thought about that when she passed in May.

.

It has not been the same since she passed. It won't be- it shouldn't be. I have tried to take my little family and start traditions so that one day when Sam is older he will remember the holidays as I do. I want him to see me as wonderful as I saw my Mom.

So it has been really hard since Thanksgiving. I get get away from it. I am sad. I am tired. I am bitchy. I am emotional. I am easily angered. I am quiet. I feel horrible because I need to be the fun holiday Mom for Sam but it is really hard. I am sure I am not making things easy for Stephen either. We have not been fighting but I know he feels it too. When is this going to get easier? How can people just pick up their lives and be ok? I think I am for the most part - it is just the big things like showers and weddings and birthdays and holidays. How do I pull myself together and get through this?

We are going to make cookies to hang on the tree this week. Mom used to make gingerbread men and popcorn balls and hang them all over the tree. They would be gone by Christmas. My sister Jessi was 1 on her 2nd Christmas (November baby) and mom had her rolling around the house in a walker. That year we had hung cookies on the tree just like every other year but that year every cookie in Jessi's reach were amputees. I know we have a picture somewhere of her up next to the tree with a gingerbread leg up to her mouth- no hands just leaning into the tree to bite the cookie. Maybe one day we will find it.

Maybe I will find a way to get out of this funk. If I don't it is not for lack of trying.