Can Every Day Be Christmas?

I would like to think that everyday could be Christmas. I hope that I try to make that happen, that the cookies baked for neighbors don't just come during the hustle and bustle, that the little gifts that can bring a smile don't just get handed out on day of the year, but most importantly, that the spirit of Jesus in my heart doesn't contain itself to one day. The spirit of Christmas and what it means to know the Lord and Saviour the way we do is meant for every day of the year.

So, in knowing that, it was my way of convincing myself that this day is like any other day of the year. And it is. The only difference is that families gather round, celebrate, and follow traditions. Or make new ones. Which is what we do now, new ones, that weave in some of the "old", yet make way for the new. We must find a way to honor the past, the present, but look to the future with hope and faith. We must hold on to the celebrations that once were part of our lives, while making way for the ones that will hold a memory in the future. Those memories are what make Christmas what it is, after all. It is often not the moment. It is remembering the past, the joys, the laughter, the love. So, in that, we were able to celebrate another Christmas without Allison being here. This is not to say it did not have the most intense, painful moments. It is not to say that I would have given anything to turn the clock back, not know the pain of grief that now walks my daily walk and talk and life. But she is not here, in the physical sense. And there is no way to describe that absence.

I saw on the news that many families were not joined together this year. Of course, I already knew that from the confines of war, where soldiers are not home with their loved ones. Then the storms kept sons and daughters from getting home. Families are not intact but there is hope for the new year and another holiday. The difference, I believe, when a child, no matter what age is gone forever, never to return, when you know there is no chance of a physical reunion, or the sight of her opening her gifts, the difference is the finality. And the sense that you carry with you, that dull sense of absence. It hovers. It clings. It is always there. But as each day comes and goes, one must learn to deal, cope and live with it, because it cannot be changed. There is an unspoken gloom, yet, it weaves with refreshed purpose and plans, and the opportunity to be alive. You want it to begin, then you want it to end, the days that mark holidays or celebrations or anniversaries. Learning to live like this is astounding. It is confusing. But we keep on, as I say everyday, for her, for our living daughter, for ourselves, for a God who is true.

We got on with the sense of Christmas. We look to make a bit of Christmas in our lives everyday. It is just another day, yet it is not. We made it what we could, and we found our way. Through the cloud of grief, we were able to find joy and love and maybe a bit of peace, if only for a moment.

Alfred Tennyson writes:

Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possessed the earth,
And calmly fell our Christmas Eve.

The yule log sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.

There it is, always hovering, the sense of something lost. We miss her, we ache for her, as many parents do this Christmas, for their beloved sons and daughters, lost to them from this earth, yet guiding them from where they now reside, deep in the hearts and bosom of our souls, our lives.