When you think about the holidays the first thought that enters your head is family. It’s the most wonderful time of year because it’s an excuse to pack into an area with all the people you love and who annoy you at the same time. There is always a bright and shining concept that is the holidays. One thing that is always in the back corner hiding and waiting is loss. Through the growth of life and age there is a point where your family starts to dwindle a little. Trials and tribulations. That basic aspect of life – death – has come in and gutted your family.
When I think about Christmas and Thanksgiving, I think, not only, about the food and all the holiday cheer, but I think of you. "You" – the representation of the people who aren’t going to be there this Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or any in the future. It can be your mother, father, brother, sister, or grandparents. Even significant others. In my life it is my grandparents. Ever since I was a little girl, the holidays were spent at my grandparents' house.
Any major event, whether it be birthdays or anything significantly important, it was spent at my grandparents' house. Waking up Christmas eve and realizing this is the day you look forward to every year because everyone has no excuse but to be together and eat, literally, the best food you can imagine tasting. Waking up Christmas day in a house filled with the people you love and knowing that you are about to have the best Christmas yet because, hello, grandparents' know how to spoil. They are pros. Two years ago was the first Christmas that I didn’t get that choice. I didn’t wake up in that house, with those people, and those presents, because someone was missing. My grandmother had passed away, so my grandfather had moved in with my mom. Now I’m not saying that I’m not loved by the people in my family and who I now have Christmas with, but it’s different. That feeling fades away and a new one replaces it. When we sold my grandparents' house, it was with a feeling of lost hope, lost memories. This year will be the first year without both of my grandparents which will be hard and sad, but I think everything will be okay. I know this sounds cheesy, but that’s life.
Now I know it seems like this is all about me but I just want you to know that all those memories aren’t gone, and they never will be. When you go to Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner and you look at that empty chair, just know that chair will be filled by your children or your grandchildren and you will feel peace. Even though there is a time in your life when your family dwindles just for a second, there is that moment, a little light that starts to grow and it’s new family. Your family will grow and you will take the place of a grandparent or father/mother and you will understand that these upcoming holidays will be hard, and so will the next one, and the next one, but there is a but.
That’s okay; it’s okay to feel sad during the holidays because all that happiness you are missing out on will be waiting for you in the future. I’ll let you in on a little secret...it will be the purest of happiness.
Happy Holidays!
