Where Are You Christmas?

The Christmas season has already started to fly by for me at lightning speed. I'm rushing to get things done as much as I can in preparation for an upcoming surgery. Then again, lately I'm always rushing around between work, teenagers and life!

Anyways, holidays are a tough time in general. I have had a hard time for years trying to really feel Christmas again. As a kid, we didn't have much at all. It's hard to explain to my kids that most of what we had under the tree were mainly hand me down or garage sale bargains or even things my mother made. I remember her making many of my barbie clothes as a kid. I remember very few new items. Three to be exact. One of the stawberry shorcake dolls-Apricot, an Atari 2600, which I think was really more for my dad and the gift that I wanted for so long-a Cabbage Patch Doll. I remember one year, my mom tried to make me one that looked as close to a real one as she could. To this day, I wish I still had that doll. As funny as it is, those things always mean more to us looking back. We never knew what to expect on Christmas. We never knew what kind of mood or temperament our father would be in. Yet, with all that considered, I still LOVED the spirit of Christmas. I STILL couldn't sleep the night before. I STILL got up at the crack of dawn to wake mama and daddy up to see what Santa had brought. We would use my dad's old tube socks for our stockings. (sooo 80's!!) We would wake up to those tube socks full of fruit and nuts and candy. I don't remember my mom ever getting anything for Christmas for herself. What little money there was, she spent it on trying to create some kind of Christmas for us.


My mom married my step-dad when I was 12. I was still torn between parents due to legalities and the fear that my father had put into my mother. I was finally able to be with my mother and my step-dad my 7th grade year of school. My first Christmas with my step-dad, Lewis, was approaching and we didn't know what to expect. He was such a loving, giving man. It was like he took us from one life and showed us a whole other side of life that we never knew or even attempted to think of. Every kid wants to buy something for their parents. I never had that opportunity. I used to love to give my kids money for the Santa Store at school because even though simple, sometimes cheaply made items, the joy it gives them to buy a gift for their family is worth the $5 pen that says #1 Mom. I still have the ring Ross bought me his Kindegarten year and will always cherish it. I still wore it every now and then for years just to show him I still had it and held it dear to me. Anyways, back to that first year with Lewis. We went Christmas shopping and I remember him giving me some money and telling me this was the 1st half of my shopping money to buy some things for my mom and my sister. My sister, having pretty much run away from home early on, was in Chicago at the time and I missed her terribly. I remember buying her one of those Garfields you stick on your window and it had some cutsie saying and I just knew that she would love it. The feeling overwhelmed me to finally get something for someone else. That's just a sliver of the Lewis I learned from for many years. Christmas with Lewis was like a Christmas song wrapped up and just busting at the seems. He WAS Christmas. The giving, the loving, the gentle nature. He became my best friend. That first Christmas, even though I was 12 years old, there was a Cabbage Patch Doll under the tree. Complete with long brown hair and glasses. I remember holding that doll like I was afraid it is was temporary and someone would take it away. He was always suprising my mother. He would wrap something so small and continue to wrap it in bigger boxes that it looked like some huge gift that she would end up opening 5 or 6 boxes to finally get to what was really there. Everything Lewis did had us rolling with laughter or touching our hearts.

My dad died when I was 13 and we lost Lewis 17 years ago when I was a few months pregnant with Reid.


I can't find my Christmas angel no matter how hard I try. So here another Christmas comes and I'm lost. Trying to reinvent traditions and make new ones. Nothing has worked. So what does one do to fill a hole in your heart at a time of year when you should be rejoicing over the season and meaning of what Christmas brings. He changed our lives. 

One year, when it was time to do Christmas at Mom's with my sister and her family, I decided to do a couple of things. I found the closest thing to tube socks that I could and filled them with oranges, apples, walnuts and the old Brach's candy you have to get by the pound. I didn't realize how hard it was to find whole walnuts. That was in rememberance of my real dad for all of those years of feeling like we had nothing when we really still had it all. Then I found some old pictures of my mom with Lewis and searched for a frame that said just the right thing. I found one that said something like, "A smile that lasts a few moments makes memories that last a lifetime". I put all the pictures I had found of my mom and Lewis together on various ventures. All smiling of course. That was to remember our Lewis.


I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas this year. My promise to myself and my family is to enjoy each other's company and continue to be thankful for all of the wonderful blessings we have! I'm eating well and will have a new port come Christmas! My cares are a little lighter and my love's a little stronger thanks to everyone who has left prints on my heart over the years. ❤️