I am going to decide to be happy this Christmas....

I have to stay busy this time of year, if I don't I reflect or think too much and it is pretty easy to go to a place of doom and gloom when it's gray skies all around outside. 

So, I stay busy doing things.....doing things that unfortunately make me remember, and make me feel that loss. You see, a lot of my childhood Christmas memories involve my Granny & Gramps. Granny loved Christmas, she loved to decorate, she loved to GIVE to people, she loved to make candy trays and stop in to visit with people. She loved to entertain and host parties or dinners, she would usually host at least 3 different things during December. She loved to play the holiday music on her console record player (and later her tape/CD player). 

This is one of my favorite pictures, Granny & Gramps
in that little window opening looking in on their guests
at Granny's Brother & Sister get together.

It all starts with setting up my Christmas decorations, I have half of my Granny's decorations, she would give me 2 or 3 every year. I have her old Christmas tree (the one we would decorate every year after Thanksgiving dinner). I use her cook book to make Christmas Candy and my favorite Christmas Cookies. I make her potato soup when we have our family Christmas. I sing in our church on Christmas Eve, with that still small hope, that she's just running late and will walk in at any minute. 

Oh, Christmas Eve.....this day is probably harder for me than actual Christmas Day.....when Rhein was about 3, we decided that we were done going to 6 different Christmas', so we would do our own Christmas and stop going to our 3 grandparents for the big family Christmas'. But, Granny was very persistent and she would not let us go, she needed help with this or that all through the week of Christmas. So, we decided after church on Christmas Eve we would just go to Granny and Gramps' house and help them get the leaves put in the table, set the table for dinner the next day and just help them get ready. Then we decided we would need to eat while we were there, so we ordered a pizza, and no meal is complete without dessert, so we needed a birthday cake for Jesus! If you had told me that first year that the little pre-celebration we had started would become my absolute favorite part of Christmas, I doubt I would have believed you. There was no stress, there was just us 5 and then us 6, after Rhett was born. 

But see, we started a tradition. Of course no one ever thinks they are starting a tradition, they just do it so many times and then it becomes expected, it becomes a tradition. So this Christmas I miss her, of course I do, and even though the hurt and loss is heavy......for the past couple weeks I have been remembering something Granny would tell me during one of the darkest times of my life (and honestly at the time it made me furious with her). "You just decide Christina, you just wake up every morning and decide to be happy". 

Well, I am here and I am trying to be happy, trying to keep my mind busy. Knowing full well, that the traditions she passed to me or started with me, will be passed to my children and hopefully theirs. I also know that she is with me....and though I might not see her walk through the doors of the church this evening, she will be there, just like she always was.