Loving Christmas

Baby Girl and I put up our Christmas tree today.  I didn't really feel like it, I didn't really want to, but I did it anyway.  That's what we do Thanksgiving weekend, we put up our tree.  Dan always said it was too early, that we should at least wait until December 1st. I always gave him a silly look and said something like "don't be ridiculous, we want Christmas up as long as possible" I always wanted Christmas up as long as possible. To enjoy it as long as possible, to love it as long as possible. I love Christmas, thats who I am. Correction, thats who I was.

I don't love Christmas anymore, or the holiday season.  I want to love it still, I remember how much I loved it and I want to be back there, where everything was magical and getting presents was so much fun (Dan was awesome at buying presents). Now a huge part of me just wants it to be over. I just want to sleep through the whole thing.  Go to sleep in November and wake up in February. Maybe if I can manage that, I will also wake up to find him alive. The big giant nightmare finally over.  Once again I am stuck in a weird kind of  limbo, I want to love Christmas and I want it to be over as fast as possible.

There seems to be a lot of emphasis, perhaps real, perhaps made up in my crazy widow brain, but pressure none the less to be happy this holiday season. We have a new house, we're starting a new life, this will be the third Christmas without him.  It's time to be happy again.  I don't know how.  I'm pretty strong willed and have a tendency to make things happen, if I want it bad enough I can figure out how to make it happen. The only time it didn't work is with Dan dying, I definitely wanted to stop that bad enough, but I couldn't make it happen, sometimes I wonder if I didn't try hard enough, after all I just said I can make anything happen if I try hard enough.  That is another blog topic. Back to this one,  if I try hard enough I will love this Christmas. Right! Rrrrriiiiiiiiigggghhhhhtttt.

Ok so what am I gonna do? How am I going to make myself love Christmas?  Baby Girl spent the night at grandmas on Thanksgiving night. I took the opportunity (cause who needs actual sleep) to go through all of our Christmas boxes. To get rid of everything I didn't like or want, or want to deal with. I was pretty impressed with myself, I got rid of almost half our stuff. I even got rid of a few things Dan had gotten for me. It's just stuff right....It doesn't fit in our new house. Is this how we make ourselves happy?

I got to the ornament box.  I got rid of all the 'kid' ornaments I thought Baby Girl wouldn't notice or remember. I kept the ones I thought she would.  The next day I went to the store and bought new ornaments, pretty silver ones (side note, given the choice between gold and silver I would always pick gold, always. I preferred gold. Dan said I had expensive tastes because I was meant to be a princess. That was in the before. Now in the after I always gravitate toward silver. It's a grief thing. Yes even your taste in fine metals is affected by grief.) I got a new angel for the top, she has fiber optic lights. I packed away the ones Baby Girl made in preschool into permanent storage. I kept out the fancy ones Dan and I bought together. I put in permanent storage the ones Dan made when he was a kid and the one that says 'our first christmas 1999'  New life, new house, new Christmas, without Dan.

I turned on Christmas music. I don't want to but I make myself because I will love Christmas again.
Hey a lot of Christmas songs are about missing loved ones. Or being happy with your loved ones. Or Santa Claus. There's not a lot of variety. I wish I could put on some 90's grunge instead, it's defiant, like me. It's not much for holiday spirit though and whats the plan, make ourselves love Christmas.  I found a "Hipster Christmas" station on Pandora, a few songs i've never heard before and the ones I have are remixed enough that I don't recognize them right away.  It's a pretty good station.


We started to hang up ornaments. The very first one I made Baby Girl put on the tree was a present we got from my mother in law last year. Its a little picture of a cute little house and on it it says "our new home" and has our names.  My Name, Baby Girls name. Not Dan's name. This isn't his new home. We are making ourselves happy in our new home. We are happy in our new home. We miss Dan anyway. I took a picture and posted it on facebook "the first ornament on our tree" isn't it sweet. Our first ornament without Dan attached to it, but he is attached to it because he is attached to us. That will not go away, nor do I want it to.

Then I came across a craft I made the year before Dan died.  Sock snowman, Dan, Baby Girl, and I.  It used to have a baby snowman too for the baby we were waiting for that never came, But I threw that away our first Christmas by ourselves.  The other three I left. What do I do with them now? Our happy snowman family, scarves and hats in our favorite colors, I think they look a little bit like us. Mommy, Daddy, little girl. Do I keep them and set them out to remember what we were? Do I get rid of the daddy because this is what we are now? Do I put them in permanent storage? Do I just throw them all away? I threw the baby snowman away but I still remember I made one. Because no matter how hard you try, your not going to forget.  I haven't decided what to do with the other ones yet.

I can get rid of snowman families, I can love our new home. I can find new Christmas music. I can buy pretty new ornaments. I can wish for all the Christmases we had with Dan, I'm not going to get them back. I can make myself love Christmas again. I think, I'm trying, I want to. I also want to sleep until February.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle