SMILE...IT'S CHRISTMAS

This time of year, as the long cold mornings and evenings get longer and colder, I always get a little melancholy.  My body goes into hibernation mode while my mind, as the holidays draw closer and I begin to reflect on the year almost past, goes back. 

I remember other winter seasons, old memories that linger from holidays that were less than ideal; my wedding in November under a cloud of disapproval that lingered for years, a phone call on Thanksgiving day when I was 10 or 11 telling us that my grandmother had just died and the phone call 10 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving, letting me know my brother had died the day before.  I already wrote about my December birthday (see my post “Cookie Day”) with it’s own set of  good and bad memories, and has it just been two birthdays ago that I lost my mother?

I missed Christmas last year because of illness and  this year both of my grandchildren were away on Thanksgiving and will be away from home on Christmas day so it’s not hard to understand why I used to dread the winter months and the holidays that come with them.  

 

For years I looked at these things  like the end of the world but I now see things differently.  Now I embrace winter and look forward to the holidays with anticipation because I finally realized that memories, good and bad, are the fabric of the crazy quilt that make up  my family’s history.   I know everything will turn out all right and this year, like past years, will just be one more story to add to that family quilt.

 

AT THE END OF THE DAY...it’s a time to remember that we will always be family and that doesn't mean joined at the hip...it means joined at the heart.