#123 Christmas
They say that Christmas is one of the hardest times after a loved one dies. All the traditions and ceremonies will hit you hard. However, it is not like that for me. It can’t be harder than it already is anyway.
I’ve been crawling through photos from previous Decembers and remembering. Janne and I did not have our own ceremonies for Christmas. We disliked traditions and wanted to play it by ear all the time.
We did make it a big deal for the boys. I made it an even bigger deal this year for obvious reasons. Janne would also go through all the family gatherings and formalities, some of them intentionally without me as we’d agree.
When Christmas would arrive, we didn’t have any plans in advance for our own celebration. Sometimes, it was an out-of-the-blue dinner that we talked about a few hours before. Some other times, we would have someone over (invited that same day). There were years when we decided to fly away to Canary Islands to visit our family (who are also our friends) to be part of their own traditions (this we loved).
One of the best “Christmas” dinners we had was two years ago. We planned it that same morning and got duck, salad, wine. We watched something on TV. However, it wasn’t even on Christmas but on December 23rd. Even then, this would happen so often with us that it was like having a Christmas every other weekend.
Last year, we didn’t do anything special. Chemotherapies made Janne extremely exhausted and weak all the time. She still went through all formalities and celebrations and needed to be strong. My gift for her was to let her use her energy for those formalities and then crash at home.
This year, our Christmas gift opening with the boys was on December 19th. Daniel didn’t even ask for the big gift so we agreed we’ll get it in the US (he made sure that I promised that the deal would not expire on the 25th). And we are part of friends’ traditions once more. So far, I know Janne would have loved it.
No, December 25th is not really hard. What’s hard is not being able to just wake up and come up with a new idea for that day. I miss our continuous christmassy feeling.
What’s hard is missing the gift Janne was for me.
