Christmas

 It's not quite 8pm here in SC. I'm sitting here listening to the hum of the fan, blowing hot air in from the wood burning stove my husband built outside. I have the lights off since my kids are all asleep, or almost asleep, so I have the lights from my bedroom behind me, and the warm sweet glow of the Christmas tree in front of me as I sit on our $45, retro 90's couch. 

And I'm happy. I'm the happiest I've been in forever. I'm not even sure why. I'm just happy. It's the last month of what's been one of the hardest years of my life. I'm excited about 2022. 

And I'm excited about Christmas. Growing up, I didn't have Christmas (or Easter, or Halloween, or Independence Day, or Veteran's Day, or Memorial Day....). We only celebrated Thanksgiving, Mother's and Father's Day, birthdays, and New Year's Day (but not in the typical way - I wasn't allowed to make resolutions (even though I did secretly in my personal journals), we never had fireworks of any kind, any sort of tradition was discouraged as worldly we simply celebrated New Year's as the start of a New Year and I'd write a special entry in my diary). Some years we would celebrate what my parents called "The Lord's Birth" which was our version of Christmas. No decorations at all. No special music. No giving to any Christmas themed charity (even to children's toy drives, if it was about Christmas my dad would not give, and we weren't allowed to without his consent). We would get some inexpensive gifts and my mom and dad would cook a re-do of the Thanksgiving dinner we'd had 2 months before. (Usually we celebrated this faux Christmas when Christmas was over. As long as there were Christmas decorations up my mom, in particular, didn't want to celebrate. We usually had this celebration the first or second week in January, but it would change year to year and some years we didn't celebrate at all.)

Holidays mean a lot to me now. It's special for me to put up the tree, and lights, and decorations, enjoy that time with my kids and my husband. Have dinner with family, give gifts, and start traditions. I love reading Luke through in December. I love Elf on the Shelf. I love the count down calendar the kids can help me with. 

The Christmas tree especially means a lot to me. I love it. I want it up as early as I possibly can. I want multi colored lights I remember from the one Christmas I can actually recall as a very young child. I loved those multi colored flashing lights. I want an angel on my tree - I remember that from being very young, and my husbands parents always had an angel on their tree while my husband grew up. I love the tradition. Each year I put special ornaments on the tree. Each year gets it's own ornament that means something for that year. I date them underneath. Each year I get photo ornaments of our kids and put them on the tree. I have a Peanuts tree skirt my parents in law bought me a couple years ago after Christmas during the sale out of all the Christmas stuff. I plan to use it every year. It's so special to me. And the kids love helping me with it. I want to make memories with them that they will never forget of each year. I want Christmas to mean as much to them as it does to me - but for so much better reasons. 

Christmas is the most special time of the year to me. All the holidays from October and Halloween to New Year's Day, but especially Christmas. 

My parents have never been to my home, in seven years of marriage, in December. Only one time when my husband and I were first married. Since then, they have never come in December. I would see them in November they would come for my eldest's birthday, then they wouldn't come around in December at all. And they always wanted us to come to their home for New Year's. 

My mom wouldn't even comment on pictures of my tree I sent her on text. She threatened to throw my sister out of her home if she brought a tiny Christmas tree into her room, in 2014, that someone let her borrow. My sister was worried my mom would trash the tree that didn't belong to her, so she kept it in her car trunk until she could give it back to the sweet lady who let her borrow it. 

My mom seemed to always hate Christmas worse than my dad. My dad, I think, just like not having to spend money on us during the Christmas season. My mom just seems to outright hate Christmas. Even now she will not talk about it, it's like she out right hates it. I don't know what bad event in her life caused this. I don't know a lot about my parents. They wouldn't talk about their past much to me growing up. So I have no idea where this came from. 

My memories of the one Christmas I can vaguely remember, are my parents arguing. My dad taking pictures, my mom smoking a cigarette and arguing about having to put up the tree. I was eating a candy cane. My sister was into everything. I remember being so excited and opening presents. I got a troll doll from my mom's mom. I didn't hardly know her, but I loved the doll and kept it for years. I remember my mom being mad Christmas morning. Didn't want pictures took. Mad about the wrapping paper every where. Fussing because she had to cook for so many people. 

My dad was never any help. The more my mom would as for help, the less he'd help. He didn't want her "telling him what to do". So I know my mom had her reasons for hating family events that required a lot of cooking, cleaning, and hosting. He wouldn't let her visit her family for Christmas either, it always was with his side of the family - usually his kids from his first wife. 

I remember several years later my mom and dad called my sister and I into the room my mom's big Windows computer was in. She was printing pages off - when printer paper was all hooked together with the preferrated paper a kid could cut up and use as play tickets. Dad explained how Mom had done research into Christmas and Easter and Halloween and how it was sinful and based in paganism and how we wouldn't be celebrating them any more. 

I remember being sad. But I was 6 or 7. My parents were right about everything, and had my best interest at heart. 

Now I'm 30. With 3 beautiful, sweet, little kids of my own. My eldest son is the age I was when I had to quit celebrating Christmas. And he's just now so into it. The joy of putting up the tree, and being the big boy that helped Mama fluff the fake tree when his brother and sister wouldn't. My youngest boy loves the ornaments and putting them on the tree. My 2 year old little girl loves taking them back off..... It's just so special. We have Elf on the Shelf this year. My eldest already knows its me that moves it around, but my youngest boy thinks its real Christmas Magic that takes Elfie to the North Pole and back, and my daughter gets so excited to see it hiding around the house. 

I wouldn't trade this for the world. And I'm a saved, born again, Bible believing Christian. 

Even the world knows what Christmas is about. That's why so many countries and governments are trying to change it. Rename it. Cancel it. And that's why non-Christian countries don't celebrate it at all. Because it celebrates Christ. 

It makes me sad that my parents cancelled the one holiday the world can't deny is about Jesus Christ. And all those years when people told me "Merry Christmas" I had to tell them, thanks but I don't celebrate it. We weren't allowed to say "Merry Christmas" back. And now there are evil people in government trying to make it illegal to say. I still struggle to say it. Because all my life Christmas was taboo. We couldn't even say the word. We had to separate the syllables and call it Christ-Mass. My mom still does this.    

I'm so thankful for truth. For discernment. For knowing what maybe started as a bad thing, is now focused on Christ - even though they had cheapened it - but it is still so much a Christ thing that they are fighting to cancel it. 

I'm thankful my kids get to know Christmas. And live it. And love it. 

And I'm thankful that, through their little eyes, I get to relive the moments I missed growing up. I get to watch the simple joy of seeing the flashing lights, the bright angel on the tree, the Elf showing up out of no where. I get to see that joy in my children's faces. And I get to heal a little more each day.