A Christmas Love Story

This is my second Christmas without my mom.  I come from a large family and last year we all gathered as we always did and tried to keep every tradition alive.  It was horrid.  This year I am excited to be hosting Christmas in my own home for the first time in my life.  The menu will break all the rules of over fifty years right down to a new cocktail.

This week I had an idea to incorporate something of my mom's  into Christmas so I went to my what is now my "dad's" home and dug through the old Christmas stuff.  I was looking for something that was distinctly mom.  What I found was love. True love,  The kind you find in movies.  In the very bottom of the oldest Christmas storage box I found a thin paper box with a very dried rubber band around it.  On the top in my mom's handwriting was "Mark and Lorraine's first Christmas together, Love is in the Air".  Inside the box were some very old and very delicate decorations likely bought at Zeller's where my mom worked.  I even recognized the little pink one with the snowman on it.  I recall that was my favorite as a young girl.  Also in the box where letters and an array of ornaments.  I started to read the letters and discovered my mom and dad wrote each other a letter every Christmas and told each other how grateful they were for their lives together.  The letters covered a lot of years and a whole lot of love.

What I found particularly moving about these letters was there very existence.  My mom and dad had a lot of children.  Every year Christmas was pure magic in my house.  Every detail was lovingly prepared.  Even gifts were wrapped with care.  Outside lights were the envy of the street and the house always smelled like baking.  All my life I thought it was about us.  My mom and dad working to give perfect kids a perfect Christmas. The discovery of the letters made me realize it was about so much more.  My mom and dad loved each other.  Forever and for always.  No greater joy.....  heaven blessed them each and every day.  Their words not mine.

So in the middle of all the chaos every year they had a tradition.  They took time out for each other and put in writing what their lives together meant.  They exchanged letters and hung a decoration that symbolized their lives.  No wonder my parents loved Christmas.  They had this magic moment that only they shared.  How they found the time and space with so many of us I will never know and really that's not the point.  They just did. I can only imagine where their special time together went but I do remember my parents being their happiest at Christmas. 

And so my gift from mom this Christmas is the reminder that my brothers and sister and I were born of love and raised in love.  Yes it said so in the letters.  And this year will be the celebration of that love as we gather together.  My Sister called this morning and told me how excited she was to be coming to my place for Christmas.  It made me feel so wonderful to hear her say that. I can't wait to show her the letters mom and dad wrote to each other the Christmas she was born.    I realized that we are all blessed by the love my parents had for each other.

Merry Christmas everyone.  Have a fabulous time.