The Hard Part About Holidays

Holidays are typically classified as "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year", and I agree.

I love the holidays!  It makes me feel like a kid again!  I love the Christmas lights!  I love wrapping presents!  I love baking cookies!  Most of all I love spending the whole day listening to holiday music and spending time with my family.

But as you know, sometimes the holidays aren't so happy.  Actually I'm almost certain that most all of us wish that we could share the holidays with someone who isn't here anymore.  Maybe it's someone who lives far away.  Maybe it's someone who is now in Heaven.  Maybe it's someone who lives close by, but you no longer talk to them.  This makes the holidays, in a sense...dreary.

It's hard to keep a happy face when you want just one room full of the tens of hundreds of people who were/are in your life to be under one roof, where you can kiss and hug them all.  Like for example, our wedding day.  I will always remember how I felt that day.  Almost 100 of our closest friends and family members came to share in our celebration and it meant the world to me.  Having family and friends travel from the scattered states New Jersey, Illinois, Tennessee, Florida and Colorado meant so, so much to me.  I had never been so touched and felt so loved in all my life.  If I could go back to that day, I would give my Yiayia and my father-in-law, Ron, just one more hug.

The holidays will never be the same without them here.  I know that death is a part of life and that they are in heaven which is the utmost majestic and gorgeous place to be, but it's only natural that we want them here...with us.

Last year I felt so robbed of the happiness of having a newborn with losing 2 close family members within the first 2 months of Annaliese's life.  This year, although they will be terribly missed, we do have things to look forward to like Annaliese being able to (maybe) unwrap her own gifts.  She will be interactive with us by walking around and playing with her new toys.  I cannot wait for this to happen and I am so excited this year for Christmas!

...but there's still that part of me that is down...and knows that this year will be especially hard for my mother in law and for Justin and his brother.

The best we can do is carry on and keep the deceased's memory alive.  That is, after all, what they would want us to do.  And for the people who are still here on earth and can't be with you for the holidays, give them a call, tell them how much you love and miss them.  Holidays are and always were about family, about love.

Happy Holidays!