CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS

The tree has been bought, strung with lights and every ornament hung with love and care. Laura and I did our baking (over 500 cookies and 700+ candies) and the trays have all been delivered.
What are we baking for 2010?

Gathering the ingredients.

Doing the prep work!

Laura Lou frosting the German Chocolate Cookies!

The Queen of the Peanut Butter Snowballs!

My right-hand gal dipping Gingersnaps and Ritz Peanut Butter Crackers!!

Turtle Bites, ready to go into a tin!

19 Tins full of goodies!

Fixing the trays.

The trays about to be delivered.

My Christmas cards along with my annual newsletter have been sent. The gifts are wrapped and I just need a couple of gift cards to round things out. The house is decorated to the hilt as it always is and the rubbermaid containers are stored away. Yes, everything seems to be done, all the Christmas preparations for 2010 have been checked off the list.

So what am I missing?

GIVING MYSELF PERMISSION

My blogging, as of late has been at a standstill and I have learned to be okay with that. There are days I just don't have the energy to even READ other blogs let alone WRITE my own. I have had to give myself permission to no longer beat myself up over this as well as other stuff. Simply put, it is what it is...

From time to time I get on here, ramble about stuff and end up deleting it. It feels like I'm going through the motions and I refuse to write if I don't feel the passion. I have realized that I am grieving even though my Mom is still with us. That might seem odd to some but it is true for me. In my heart, my emotions swing like a giant pendulum from the side of hope to despair. Yesterday during praise and worship at church, I was singing with gusto at one moment and sobbing the next. I'm sure this is normal and I am seriously thinking of looking for a book at the Christian Bookstore that deals with this whole subject.

Throughout this trial I have been surrounded by an incredible support system! Top on the list is God Himself! The Holy Spirit has empowered me in so many ways that I am actually able to recognize the JOY of that, in the midst of my sadness!

Dave has been my rock; he has been incredibly compassionate and understanding of me. I'm sure having lost his Mom gives him special insight even though he is a man and in his case, ruled by logic and reason. I have drawn on him and his quiet strength like never before!

My children are wonderful! They have been in contact with my folks, letting them know that they are deeply loved. Since my Mom's auto-immune system has been wiped out not to mention her fatigue combined with her concerns and anxiety of daily living with a Colostomy, (She has had nearly constant diareeh while on chemo) they really haven't been up for company. Not seeing them has been hard on my kids but they understand.

My friends have been wonderful. I have had to give myself permission to stop feeling guilty about my lack of communication. They are kept in the loop as to what's going on and I receive e-mails and phone messages telling me of their love and concern; receiving that makes my heart soar even when I feel like my wings are broken! Returning phone calls has become very difficult for me. I am an incredibly social and extroverted person so that seems SO abnormal for me. I realize that I can only talk about my Mom's illness just SO much, then multiply that by retelling it over and over and it wears me down even more than I already am!! I told a dear friend who is in the midst of her own cancer crisis with her dad that "I am tired of being on the verge of tears all of the time". I have had to draw my line in the sand on allowing negativity to over run my life! In many ways, I have cocooned myself away, much like a wounded animal withdraws so that it can focus its energies on healing. I never thought that I could be that way and yet here I am...

Some days find me better than others. This experience, as awful as it has been is teaching me something valuable. At this moment in time I can't see the whole sum of it but I just have to trust that God is faithful and that one day I will look back and see how far he has brought me. Along this incredibly LONG journey, taken with baby steps, I know that God is at work within me, transforming me more each day to bear the likeness of His son Jesus Christ. I am constantly reminded of part of a poem written by Russell Kelfer that author Rick Warren quotes in his book, "The Purpose Driven Life":
"No that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into His likeness you would grow."


I have to believe that purpose can be found within our suffering...it's what gets me through the day.

MARRIAGE MONDAY

It's Marriage Monday and it's time once again to encourage each other in our sacred commitments. Join in and share your views on this month's topic:
"JOY FOR TWO AT CHRISTMAS"

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Our Private Christmas Traditions
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I have really been struggling this year preparing my heart and spirit for Christmas. Most everyone knows that my Mom is fighting for her life against cancer and barring Divine Intervention, this will be her last Christmas. This breaks my heart beyond words...

Yesterday, I was feeling under the weather. I awoke at 2:15 Sunday morning with all the symptoms of the stomach flu train, rolling into the station! I do believe getting a flu shot prevented me from a full train derailment! I was pretty run-down all day, slept a lot and ate very little! This morning I am back on track and raring to go! (Dave is a Railroader so this analogy just popped into my head!)

One of the things I did yesterday was watch one of my favorite Christmas movies, "One Magic Christmas" while Dave was at Church Bowling League (I have to post-bowl this afternoon). I have been teased by my family for as long as this movie has been out, about my love for this movie and their disdain for it! Yes, it's a knock off of "It's A Wonderful Life" but it's from a woman's perspective and it has an enchanting North Pole/Santa Clause twist that I enjoy. In classic form, after being shown that she has MUCH to be thankful for and that it can be taken away in an instant, the woman is reformed, focused and grateful for the blessings of her husband and children!

Yesterday that was me! I told Dave last night that my Mom's cancer is a monster that is consuming EVERYTHING in my life and the more I feed it, the hungrier it is! It's the first thing I think about in the morning, it's the last thing I think about when I close my eyes at night and it hovers over me all the day long. When the movie was over I sat there and cried because I have lost sight of so much that is wonderful in my life! I have been blessed with children, grandchildren, wonderful parents, amazing friends who are so supportive and a husband that I am more wildly in love with after all of these years than I was was back when we shared our very first Christmas together!

There is something about sharing your life with your best friend that brings comfort even when our hearts are suffering. Dave has walked this road before losing his Mom to cancer in 2006 and now his dad this past summer. Granted, his is a male perspective and ruled by logic and reason but he understands me...Our trials have bound our hearts even closer together. We've shared many Christmas' over the years; years where I was pregnant, we had small children, teenagers and now, empty-nesters.

I remember many late Christmas Eve's spent baking pies for Christmas dinner, wrapping the last of the kids gifts, filling stockings and then falling exhausted into bed only to be awakened on Christmas morning before the sun was even up! One year, before putting them to bed, we told the kids not to wake us up before 7AM on Christmas morning. We then proceeded to set all the clocks back one hour, ensuring us sleep until 8AM! Now THAT was hilarious! In our home, opening gifts has never been a "free for all"; we go in orderly fashion, taking turns so that each gift and giver can be fully appreciated.

Life is slower paced now which is enjoyable but I miss the frantic, noisy-ness of children living at home. Still, I am content...

UNMOTIVATED

I LOVE Christmas! I love decorating, baking, addressing the Christmas cards, wrapping gifts and so on. Can I just say for the record that my heart's just not in it this year....

I KNOW that the focus of Christmas is NONE of the things that I just mentioned, it's about the love of God for mankind, expressed in human form in the person of Jesus Christ.

However, when cancer is threatening the life of someone dear to you, it's difficult to stay focused on the true meaning of Christmas. Most of the time you think of just making it through the day.

That's me, where I am right now-raw, wounded and brutally honest...

The older I get the more I find myself reflecting. I am sure that no longer having children living at home is a part of that as well. Life WAS simpler when I was a child. Even though my Mom struggled to make ends meet and provide for us I always enjoyed Christmas. It was never extravagant (especially by today's standards and a single Mom's salary) but I never felt like I lacked in anything despite the fact that we were too poor to pay attention. I usually got a gift and an outfit from my Mom for Christmas and of course my Grandmas always had something for me, usually clothes too. Considering I went to Catholic school and had to wear a uniform, the gift of clothing was a treat!

We had a small artificial tree, probably 3 feet tall that sat on the corner end table. It wasn't anything that would appear in a Martha Stewart magazine but I didn't know any different. It could have been one of those silver aluminum ones with the rotating color wheel and I wouldn't have cared. It was ours, decorated with ornaments that my Mom had brought from Germany with her when she came to this country. It probably took us a total of 30 minutes to assemble the tree, hang the ornaments and string tinsel on it; unlike today where I spend HOURS just getting 100's of lights on the tree!

I remember being at my Grandma's house and watching the Christmas specials-
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas", "Charlie Brown Christmas", "Frosty The Snowman" and "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer". Outside the wind would be blowing, my Mom might be out shopping and I would be snuggled up by the space heater watching TV. Through it all, I felt S-A-F-E.

Now I am 50, my Grandma went to be with Jesus 10 years ago and in all liklihood, this is my Mom's last Christmas. Part of me yearns for those days when I was a child and life was so uncomplicated.

We don't get the luxury of standing still, life is always propelling us forward even when we want to dig in our heels and stay put!