I feel like I am mustering up every ounce of courage and joy just to make this a happy Christmas for Maya, even though I feel so sad in my heart. Every time I hear the song "have yourself and merry little Christmas," my eyes well with tears that I can hardly hold back. I really don't want this to be how Maya remembers Christmas, so as hard as it is I want to make it special for her.
I really wanted Christmas to be filled with joy and tradition and the idea that Jesus is what Christmas is about. I think Santa is great, we just aren't going that route with Maya, but if you do I think that it is totally fine.
The beginning of the month we decorated our tree and Maya was overjoyed, she kept saying " I want to do Christmas," which really meant "I want to put all of the ornaments at the bottom of the tree. "
One morning she even walked downstairs and said, "let me check if it is Christmas" and proceeded to look out the window, then she replied, "nope not yet."
We got out our advent calender, which I filled with chocolate for Maya and I even let her have it at breakfast (only during Christmas).
We did some Christmas crafting together, Maya painted and put together a foam tree and I did these crafts.
Christmas clothes pins (found here)
Christmas candy cady (found here) and (here)
We made our candy cady a Christmas card to our friends here in town, rather than just a gift.I also made Christmas Broaches, which I just did with left over material I had
All of these were going to be part of the Christmas party we were hosting on Dec 14th
But that never happened........I remember walking into Carrisa's house and one of the first things I saw on her refrigerator were clothes pins with cute scrap booking paper, something I had just made. I loved how we had that in common.
We were unexpectidly gone one of the weeks during Christmas, one of the hardest weeks I have ever experienced. The week was suppose to be full of baking, Christmas parties, ginger bread houses, and other Christmas traditions, but instead it was full of something of the deepest pain I have ever experienced.
When we got home, I was not just upset about losing Carrisa, but about losing that time that was planned for our family. With what little time we had left before Christmas we decided to do a family cooking night, it was lots of fun, daddy even helped a ton, but somehow it didn't feel the same.
yes, I let my daughter eat the dough, am I a bad mom?
my moms famous "candy cane cookies." can you tell which ones Maya made?
The next morning we woke up to this
probably the closet thing we will get to snow before Christmas
Posts
Maya is so adorable! That fog was incredibly eerie the other day.
ReplyDeleteYou are so crafty and no you aren't a bad mom, eating the dough is always fun. It's funny one of my memories of us hanging out as kids was making cookies with you. I don't know why but I thought it was so cool the way you mixed the brown sugar and white sugar haha. Memories are weird. Oh and by the way I love the picture of Maya in her dress. She is such a cute little girl.
ReplyDeleteI remember how awful that first Christmas was for me. We did what we could, but there's no denying how difficult it will be. Be assured that you are a loving mommy, supportive and sweet wife, and that your family will get you through. (btw, we don't do Santa, either). :o)
ReplyDeleteWhat is that dork wearing a head lamp and an apron?
ReplyDelete