"Perhaps miracles only ha

I had to actively decide to participate in Christmas this year. I didn't feel like doing Christmas. I felt more like going to bed and waiting for 2009 to happen. I just didn't want to do it. I tried and failed to get into the spirit of the season as it were but I just couldn't. Lot of it had to do with the fact that I have had a bad year. I also didn't feel like it because after Christmas we're slowly but surely getting closer and closer to the one year heaven date since we lost my Opa. Christmas last year was the last night he had been able to eat a full meal. Then that leads me to thinking about the last Christmas we had with my Opa Warkentin. He loved Christmas because it meant family, joy, fatih and Chocolate. I'm not kidding. One of his favourite things in the world was chocolate and giving it to his grandchildren. The pictures that I posted there are my two favourite Christmas pictures of my Opas. The first one was taken in Edmonton at the Legislative building. We went to see the lights. I remember that outting only because my Opa (a butcher) had cut his arm at work and I was very concerned about his bandage. He told me he got an owie. The second picture is of my Opa Warkentin. It was taken at my Aunts house on Christmas eve. We are German after all and that's when we open presents. That's my Oma sitting on the floor and me in the blue dress. I think that's the back of Amandas head...or it could be Johnny. We were all blond as kids. Anyway this is my favourite Christmas picture of Opa. He's being the quiet observer. He was always like that. While mayham broke out around him he would quietly sit in his chair and watch it all unfold.

Actively deciding to do Christmas was a hard choice. One never thinks you have to choose to do Christmas. But this year I realized for some people you have to. I had to. John and I did what we like to call Kamakazee Christmas shopping. We get it all done in one day. Yes, we are slightly insane. After we did this we got in the car and I just burst into tears. I didn't like the idea of celebrating Christmas with my Opa's. I didn't like being away from my family. I didn't like that John was being is normal grinchy self and not trying to be more helpful. I wailed that I didn't want to do Christmas. I didn't want to be happy and enjoy the season. I didn't want to do it. All this this was not helped by the fact that John is rather "meh" when it comes to Christmas and really could have cared less whether we did Christmas or not. But he did tell me I had to decide for myself. I had to decide whether or not we were going to bother or not. None of this sitting on the fence. This was a "yes" or "no" situation.

I decided I was going to try. I owed it to myself to try. I first allowed myself to listen Christmas music. I was okay with that. Well except with "I'll be home for Christmas" and "Christmas Shoes." Those have been banned for now. I then did our Christmas letter. That felt okay too. I worked my way up to getting out the Christmas tree. John had to get out the box of ornaments because they were in my hope chest which is full of stuff I got from my Opa. I can't look at those things. But John helped me put up the tree. It felt nice to have a tree. John wanted to continue the tradition of buying a Christmas book. So he bought me "The Lump of Coal" by Lemony Snicket. Brilliant little Christmas book. It was adorable and hilarious. Then I got to the last page. I cried. But the truth in what I was reading just shook me.

"It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do. The holiday season, like all the other seasons, is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them..."

I'm grateful for the miracle of technology. It allowed my brother and I to have Christmas with my parents. Thanks to laptops and webcams.

Please notice that both my brother and I are wearing blue. I think we do this because my mom is obsessed with us wearing blue to match out eyes that we inevitably wear blue when we know she's going to see it.

I am grateful for Christmases of yore. Because these Christmases provided with some of my favourite memories and traditions I have now brought into my own marriage.

Note Johnny's wicked bed head!

 
Christmas eve and Christmas morning of the same year. Rainbow Brite and a Popple...so a child ot the 80's!

I'm grateful that John finally agreed to go to the Children's Museum with me to see the Eaton's Department Store Christmas Window displays. For you non-Canadians. Eatons was a MASSIVE department store in Canada that closed many years ago. In Winnipeg every year of Christmas before it closed they had the most beautiful Christmas displays in their downtown store. My dad remembers seeing them when he was a child. I remember going to see them once. John had never seen them.

Look John was in one of the displays!

I'm grateful for friends who have become family (and their little ones who like to practice for Christmas morning)

She also devours books.

So yeah, Christmas isn't going to be easy this year. But I'm going to focus on the miracles in my own life and see what happens.