Christmas used to be a favorite holiday of mine. With three kids, I used to enjoy all the trappings of Christmas. From the tree, to the gifts, to the cooking, to the different traditions, I loved it all. But three years ago my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer just before Thanksgiving and I flew to Texas (from MD) to spend what would be her last Christmas with her. I left 4 days after Christmas only to have to return a month later in a snowstorm when she died. Now this year, just before Thanksgiving, my dearest Donnie, who had been battling one setback after another from stomach cancer, had to be removed from life support and died. A part of me died with him. That part that reasons things out just shut down. My head understands that he would never recover fully, but my heart just doesn't get it. My head knows that I need to make things better here for our 8 year old daughter and show her that life goes on but my heart just doesn't care. Christmas this year is a chore, just something else that has to be done like the laundry. I plod through each day trying to pretend that I am excited by something that I just dont feel.

So a Christmas Support Group would be nice....I have to get through this for her sake. She needs to know that life does go on.

Melissa, I'm so sorry for your "agony of absence". This is such a difficult time of year when the absence is fresh and the agony is still so raw. I hope that you'll stay here with us and let us help you through the next couple of weeks. The joy of Christmas will someday come back, but probably not this year...be kind and compassionate with yourself as you continue to grieve...it's okay not to be in the Christmas spirit this year. I wonder if your daughter isn't feeling somewhat the same. Maybe she needs help to get through it too. Life DOES go on, and you both will too, slowly, painfully, one moment, one day at a time. It's all you can do, just move from one moment to the next and pull yourself through. Let us help. I wish I knew what to say, but I know there aren't too many words to ease that anguish. Just know that we're here for you. Come and let us help you in whatever way we can.

Melissa, I am truly sorry for what you are experiencing. Love and Light, Lynn

Mellisa
I feel compassion for you.Yes I am happy to be supportive on Christmas day (any other too)
Perhaps my aversion to tinsel stems from losing a loved one just before Christmas in 1972.That year I did ALL my gift shopping for my two little children the day before Christmas.I felt inadequet. I did not fully realise until I read your post so may I thank you for sharing.
Mountain Ash

i found you again, thought i had lost this post for good....

todays the offical or tradisional day over heer for doing the tree (even thought they start going up on the 1st dec)

i growen when i see them that early, it's just too much all the songs and fuss for over a mounth.

I gotta get presents bought early couse i know that by this time i have ran out of steam and can't face going dowen the towen it's way to bizy.

It's a long twisty storie and aint that intrestting but i am alway's glade when this time over and new years in...

it's been great reading you ladies. cheers

and thaniks eagle, for hgaving the alternitive though to all the compulsary happy stuff
Celtic_flame

I don't know about the rest of you in this Christmas Support Group (those who have participated and those who are reading from afar), but I'm really feeling the pressure now. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to suffocate from all the anxiety and stress. I literally have to keep telling myself to "STOP", "just breathe" and "focus on the 'why' of all of this". It's helping. The other thing I HAVE to do is focus on just one day at a time. Sounds cliche, but if I don't, if I try to look ahead at the zillion things that have to be done for each day that company is here, I can feel that suffocation rising up in me. So, other than ensuring that enough gifts and groceries are in the house (and even then we're only shopping for the 23rd - 26th, then will do the second round on the 27th), I'm just getting myself to each new morning and figuring out what needs to be done today. As soon as I step outside that parameter, I feel the mangled anxiety closing in on me.

How about you? TVC? KLM? How's the journey going with a week left (for some of us, the 23rd-24th is just the beginning!)

I hope you still feel safe to vent and visit here - remember, this is supposed to be a safe place for those of us who are struggling through this Christmas season and don't want to pull anyone else down into our grief, sadness, funk, stress, whatever...this is the place to be real!

Eagle, I know what you mean. But I also know this will be another miraculous Christmas for you and everyone else who tries to get it right.

So our grandkids will have time with Santa's toys on Christmas Day, we have Christmas ahead of time at our house. Yesterday we had our annual sit down Christmas dinner with tons of food and gifts for an entire extended family of kids, grandkids, parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few strangers. It lasts all day into the night and out of towners sleep over. A few folks that no one really knows show up and our kids bring a few unexpected friends so there’s no way to plan. The guest list grows and everything gets more complicated every year. It's a nightmare of astronomical proportion. But once again, we all survived and it was a tremendous blessing.

I gave up on being Martha Stewart long ago, but for some reason I am still compelled to strive for the perfect Christmas. I start decorating at Thanksgiving and go from an excited kid to a total grump. Lights go out, decorations break, and things fall apart then I start buying gifts and turn into a major Scrooge. If we somehow avoid bankruptcy, I start cooking and turn into a fat kitchen witch. Then I feel l guilty for being such a grump which increases the stress even more.

But this year I was so calm I hardly knew myself. I even enjoyed a being grumpy.

I think it resulted from working on a Christmas comedy. I imagined how stressed poor Mary must have been when out of the blue, an angel showed up to tell her she was pregnant with the Son of God. When she told her fiancé, Joseph, he tried to kick her to the curb then like most men in a crisis, he took a nap and an angel told him in a dream to be nice to Mary. After they made up, he decided to take them on a wild hair trip to Bethlehem for the census and he expected poor pregnant Mary to ride a donkey for heaven's sake.

The trip must have been awful. Donkeys stink and Mary was probably having morning sickness. On top of that, while Joseph was trying to make good time, Mary probably had to pee every few miles. And I’m pretty sure there were no decent rest stops.

When they finally got to Bethlehem, Joseph hadn’t made reservations so they wound up in a smelly old stable. They were probably exhausted, irritable and grumpy from the trip and to top it all off, Mary went into labor. While they were dealing with all that, a smelly homeless shepherd showed up and they got news that a bunch of wealthy kings were coming. The stable was probably a wreck, but just when things couldn’t get worse, a bright star lit up the place and the baby was born. When Mary held him in her arms and called him Jesus, the whole universe was miraculously filled with peace, love, and joy.

Seems like a similar miracle happens around here every year. After a month of decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking, and major stress, the miracle happened again here yesterday as it does every year. And we were blessed by abundant love.

smile

Smile, that was more beautiful than I can find words to adequately express. The joy of that first Christmas miracle rises to the forefront of focus...remembering the Christmas story the way you tell it here - and with a new baby of our own (our new grandson) joining in the celebrations this year - the joy of that miracle will be easier to remember in the middle of the hectic fray! Thank you.

http://www.byforandaboutwomen.com/radio.htm

I listened to Eagle's interview at the above web radio site. A certain point came up that resonated with me. A lot of pop psychology is about "How to Improve Your Life in 10 Easy Steps." The interviewer brought up the fact that Eagle's narrative is more powerful because it does not precribe a linear form to the experience of depression. Bravo!

Smile, tell it like it is! I always imagined that it wasn't so pleasant of a trip. Besides, newly formed historical links say they were doing the census in Nazareth anyway, so why did they travel to Beth...? When I was a kid, my cousin and brother and I used to make a play out of the birth of Jesus, using a stuffed animal for the baby in a doll's cradle, wearing a church veil for Mary, using my aunt's statues to represent 3 wise men...We were fun and oh so serious at the same time.