My First Christmas Completely Without My Mom

Last year my family was in the shocked stage of mourning when the holidays passed. Christmas was a painful day but no more so than the two months between losing my mother and the new calendar year.

My mom loved Christmas and left us with happy memories of her bringing out the miniature village, decorating the tree, and eating the fudge she made solely for the holiday. We opened gifts on Christmas Eve which was also her birthday. It became a routine for me to be able to wish her “Happy Birthday!” before anyone else in the family. When someone didn’t think of her birthday before holiday celebrations began, she took it in stride. She loved Christmas.

My family used an artificial tree each year. As a child I would watch my mom know how to put our tree together and thought it was magic. There always seemed to be twenty pieces but mom knew where they went. It was years before I realized the branches were painted with different colors on their ends that showed where to place them. This year I put our tree up and there were only three pieces. Times have changed since I was a child in the 1980’s.

The first Christmas memory I have is one related to pop culture at the time. In 1983, my paternal grandmother ordered a Cabbage Patch Kid doll for my cousin and me several months in advance. It seemed every child wanted one of those dolls that year. My cousin related through my maternal grandmother was unable to have a genuine Cabbage Patch Kid because my aunt simply couldn’t find one. She made her two dolls that looked similar to the real doll but as a five year old I told her they weren’t real because “no man wrote on their bottoms..” This was in reference to Xavier Robert’s signature on the genuine dolls.

Two years after the Cabbage Patch Kid mania, photographs at my grandmother’s home show our two new cousins. Another aunt and uncle adopted a three year old and a six year old we would see at holidays both at my maternal and paternal grandmothers’ homes. This aunt is my dad’s sister and uncle my mom’s brother so they became my double first cousins and were already old enough to play. They were better than dolls. I had true playmates who lived close. The year 1985 brought a happy holiday season.

Christmas was always fun at my maternal grandmother’s home. The same cousin I previously spoke of grew up to be my best friend. I have memories of waiting for her family to arrive as they lived out of town. When she arrived at our grandmother’s home, we took off to the back room to talk. She listened to me as I related what gifts I received earlier in the day. My aunt and uncle chose to open presents on Christmas Day so she would tell me what she thought she would receive . We kept this tradition alive until she was 19 and I was 21.

Then my favorite Christmas came in 2003. My son was born on December 22 and came home that Christmas Eve night. Although I missed both extended family gatherings, 2003 was special because my husband and I became our own family unit.

When my maternal grandmother died in 1998, I asked my mom to try to keep the family getting together at Christmas because without the holiday it seemed the entire family was never together. My therapist told me a simple comparison. As people we are all tied together by invisible threads. I visualize it as balloon strings. When someone dies, the strings have to find somewhere to go because what was physically tying them down is gone. Energy cannot drift off into a hole. When my grandmother died, my mom kept those strings together. Last year my mom was sick but we had no reason to believe she would die before Christmas. She was making plans and attempting to keep everything in order for the holiday. In 2011, the strings are again detached as we work to reattach them or drift to make additional holiday memories with our direct families.

The holiday season is different in 2011. It is bittersweet.


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