Christmas Spirit... lost'n'found.....

December is fast approaching and along with it an unsettled feeling has settled into my usually contented self. I love Christmas, I always have. I love the lights and the ornaments, the movies and the music, the egg nog and the snacks and I used to love (most of all) the quiet, sure togetherness of my family. But the togetherness of my family just isn't there anymore and I am finding it difficult to find my own openness to the time of year that has always filled me with so much beautiful.

My absolute favourite part of Christmas is the truth of what I believe and celebrate, the birth of Baby Jesus.

My second favourite part of Christmas is the Christmas Tree! I just absolutely LOVE decorating the tree!!!

Enz doesn't love the work of decorating the tree but I am beyond
thankful that my boys so love to help me!



And after having decorated the Christmas Tree... I spend hours upon
hours just being grateful in the mesmerising warmth of glow.

As a kid I looked forward to nothing more than decorating the Christmas tree ALL year through and it was torture having to wait until the 22nd or the 23rd of December to be able to put up our tree when all my friends always had theirs up sooooooo much earlier... but my dad was a forester and he was away working in the bush during the weekdays and home on weekends and he would always bring our fresh-cut tree home with him just in time for Christmas. We always decorated the tree together as a family and it was filled with all of our special family heirloom ornaments... my mom still puts one or two of those 'specials' on her tree every year, which I appreciate knowing even though I don't get to actually visit and help anymore.

I didn't really 'get' until now that our family Christmas routine kind of met it's true end after my dad died. Sure, we tried for awhile to make the traditions continue with trees from the tree lot and the regular Christmas dinners but it was never the same... except for the stuff, the stuff remained the same.

Stuff...

My mom LOVES stuff! Our Christmases growing up were so ridiculous with the amount of toys and books and clothes and candy and knickknacks that our house felt like it was overflowing and way too much to handle, even way back then as a child! My favourite time of Christmas was always Christmas Eve because it was quiet and special; we always had lasagna and perogies for dinner (my absolute FAVOURITE dinner of the year because it's the only time we had them as a treat since my mom didn't like either) along with salads and cheesecake for dessert (which us kids didn't like at the time so it all evened out for everyone). After dinner we would head off to Christmas Eve service at our regular church before heading back home to the quiet of the tree light where everything was still and neat, tucked and wrapped. Christmas mornings were early in our house, usually starting around 3:30 am but our parents one Christmas rule was that us kids couldn't wake everyone up or head downstairs until the clock said 5:00..... and then the craziness started. I don't remember a time we weren't in a rush and still opening gifts at 10:30 on a Christmas morning to try and get to Christmas morning service on time and I doubt we ever did actually arrive on time but we always did arrive because it was important to my parents that we knew the reason for all the stuff-gifted hooplah. It didn't really make sense even back then of why my parents went so overboard with gifts or why it's still so important to my mom to just fill the soft Christmas space with stuff but unfortunately, it is. I have tried to get my family to scale back the Christmas 'stuff' for years and my brother had no problem with that since he seems to have chosen to disconnect pretty completely with our family but my mom and sister both still can't seem to stop shopping and collecting like they are trying to make up for something. But this is the year... after all my pleas to cut back on giftage..... this is the year that we finally came to an agreement! We, as a family during Sunday dinners (before we recently ended them) worked out a bunch of ideas, put them on the table and finally met in the middle on the LEAST-upsetting to half of us and the LEAST-agreeable to the other half of us and we set a spending limit. Not perfect but at least it's progress.

Progress is good but it's still not a fix for my soul. Part of me wants to just ignore the Holidays this year and part of me wants to celebrate the beautiful. So, what's the problem? Right?? Well, the problem for me, is that my family is the biggest part of the beautiful and not being able to spend time with them during my most cherished time of the year is upsetting. The worst part is that we live (except for my brother in another Province) less than 15 km's from each other but because of my death-inducing allergies to cats I can't even be in the presence of people who have cats for more than about forty-five minutes before I go into eyes-running-to-swelling-I-can't-see-for-days, throat-swelling-gasping-for-breath, chest-coughing-lungs-piercing PAIN that lasts for days thanks to the second hand dander that people with cats carry. I am the one who was forced to end my attendance at our weekly family dinners because seeing my family for those few hours meant I was sick for at least 3 days every week. Because both my aunt and sister have cats and my mom allows my sisters cat to be in her house for extended periods, I have become unable to visit at any of their houses... maybe it's just me they don't want around; I'd have preferred to have had them just tell me they didn't want me visiting over trying to kill me, though! I'm only kidding... I don't begrudge them their family addition choices, it just sucks to be banished due to health reasons. And before anyone gets on me about allergy reaction suppressants, I do take daily prescriptions to help keep me safe in the event I am out and about and come into contact with anyone in the general public who could have cat dander on them. I was also taking extra allergy medications on top of my dailies on the days I spent time with my family but the allergy is so bad that nothing medicine-wise can fully curb my dangerous reactions and I need to physically stay away.

It wasn't near as bad when it was only my aunt who had a cat, I just made sure to take extra medicine, sit across the room and at the far end of the table but now that there is my aunt, sister and her husband, my mom and her Newf-Husky cross dog who ALL now carry the dander, I can't even sit at the same table with my family and on the now VERY rare occasions we all have to share a dinner, we eat in the living room so I can try to keep distance on an opposite couch in the corner... it sucks. I can't physically share Christmas breakfast or Christmas games and snacks or Christmas dinner with my family anymore. So, for the past two years I have spent (and paid viciously for) only a few short hours sharing gift-opening time with my family. Great for the ones who feel that's the important time but not for me who feels that the quiet together time is really what's most important.

And so I'm torn. But why am I torn? Why am I worrying over whether I should decorate or not when December is still a ways away? Why am I even considering not putting the work into decorating as I so LOVE to do just because I feel guilty that my family has fallen apart into one big, gross dysfunctional outs? Why am I even considering hinging my joy of celebrating on others who don't give the slightest fuck about it???

I write my blogs on-the-fly, I never plan what I'm going to write about, and with the previous paragraph that just made its way in, I realized something... I can't let disappointment overtake my celebration. I have to decorate because the Christmas setting I love so much is necessary for my soul. So necessary for my soul, in fact, that I keep both my Charlie Brown Tree up in my bedroom and a lighted tree up in workshop all year 'round and I would keep a fully decorated tree up in the house year 'round too... if Enz didn't have such a problem with that plan. I've had people tell me I should decorate my shop tree seasonally but no, I don't want to do that, I keep the lights on so that the Christmas Spirit lights my every day but I keep the ornaments on only for he month of December to mark the specialness even in my own ordinary. And I think I just finally realized that it doesn't matter who I can or can't share it all with, it only matters that I share my joy openly with all that I am despite my circumstances. Because that's living... even if we've lost.

Ahhhhh... Charlie Brown.....
my in-house year 'round Christmas comfort...



...and my year 'round workshop Christmas comfort!
Ahhhhh... Working in May!
Cowgirl boots and Christmas Tree make for
one very happy ME!

Since I just now suddenly and finally decided that yes, I will wholeheartedly decorate and that yes, I will wholeheartedly celebrate The Season and The Reason that I celebrate... I now just have to decide how my heart wholly needs to go about it!

Our first Christmas Tree after getting married almost 22 years ago... a 12' Blue Spruce that
began a tradition of huge trees and "crap-how-are-we-going-to-stand-this-thing-up!??" years.

Until the year we decided that an artificial tree might be okaaayyyyy...

Followed by the year I couldn't stand the thought of losing seating area by removing couch sections to make
tree room and we instead bought the upside-down tree... space-saving functionality but still big and bright
and warm and inviting and! Even Enz admitted he loved the way the ornaments hang from this tree
as they catch the light glow and sparkle, carrying it outward.

It's kind of a tough choice treewise because I want it to be right, to feel right... even with so much feeling so wrong right now. I love the upside-down tree because I completely love cozying up on the couch beneath the overhanging branches to watch my favourite Hallmark Christmas movies. But I love the regular-artificial tree too because it shares more of the room with us as one of us. But then there are the moments when I long for the past of a real tree, just like my dad used to search out, cut down and proudly bring home to us... no matter how Charlie Brownish it was. That may be why I also keep my little Charlie Brown Tree up all year, too... Hmmm, maybe there's more to all of this than I even realized, at all!

But, since this year, seating really isn't an issue because it'll be just Enz, the boys and I through the Holidays, we really could go back to a regular right-side-up tree to change things up again. I wish I didn't suck so bad at decision-making! but I still have nine more days until final decision time for this years celebration style...

How do you celebrate your own beliefs for the Holidays? There are so many different beliefs, each as important as every other to celebrate and I want to celebrate your reasons right along with you. I highly doubt I'm the only one going through a little Holiday loneliness and maybe if we pool our loneliness by sharing our individual celebrations, well, maybe we'll find a common space where we really belong in our togetherness!