Today, I took down my Christmas tree. It’s February 16th, but I felt like I missed Christmas. December went by and I missed it because I was numb. It was just a shitty month. What happened to Christmas?
My husband and I own a chocolate shop (Cocoashak) and December is our busiest month. The Christmas rush starts the day after Thanksgiving and rolls right through to Christmas Eve. Non-stop all month. And if I wasn’t there, then I was at my other job, which is in a call center. There was no time for shopping or wrapping or enjoying. On Christmas Day, I got up and went to work at the call center. No traditional Christmas breakfast. No gift unwrapping. No visiting my in-laws for Christmas dinner. I missed it all.
And among all the chaos that is December, my brother died on the 11th. He went into the hospital during a snowstorm on the 9th and he died two days later. We held his memorial service on January 15th, just as another snow storm ended that morning. Jon hated the cold.
No matter how you look at it, Christmas just wasn’t Christmas for me this year. So I kept the tree up. Maybe I was hoping to somehow capture the feeling of Christmas each night when the timer lit the lights. Growing up we used to get the Ideals Magazine which had stories and poems representing the “ideal” Christmas. I would look at it for hours. I loved the pictures of horse-drawn sleighs taking people to houses that were beautifully blanketed by snow, with gorgeous Christmas trees and happy people and children playing in the snow or curled up by the fire waiting for Santa.
So each night, my beautiful, bent, pink Christmas tree would light up from its timer. And each night, I would appreciate that sight. There was something Seussian about the curve in the tree, perhaps a tree that I might find in Whoville? It was pink and fun and made me smile. And I needed it for a while.
But taking it down this weekend felt right. All the “missed” feelings of Christmas, all the memories of growing up with my brother, all of it was ok now. I will miss Jon and his laugh and I will think of him sometimes and cry, but today I am ok. Today, I can take down my Christmas tree.
Here is a follow-up post on spreading my brother’s ashes when the weather got warm. Launching My Brother’s Ashes.
Oh my goodness Jenn, my 2015 Christmas felt much the same! I kept telling everyone I just am not feeling Christmas, I don’t feel like life is letting me feel Christmas. My grandmother was in the hospital, my husband was in another hospital, I had the responsibility of three kids, one being my stepson who was particularly jaded that year. It’s funny though, although I remember feeling that way, that I wasn’t allowed to enjoy Christmas, I look back on that time and think wow, that might have been the most magical Christmas eve and morning I had ever experienced…despite it all.
I don’t even remember that Christmas, except for the fact that I had to work. My husband went to his sister’s house, as we normally would, but because of the distance, I wasn’t able to both work and make it to her house. While on the one hand, I’m sad that my husband no longer has his chocolate shop, on the other hand, I’m so glad that we can actually experience the holidays again.
That is sad, a chocolate shop sounds like a fun and whimsical adventure
It was fun, except during the money maker holidays – Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter and Mother’s Day. All were lost in a haze of 15 hour work days, 7 days a week. The only way I can tell you what those holidays were like during that three year period is to relate it in terms of the work in the shop. I don’t remember decorating for Christmas at home, only at the shop. I don’t remember receiving or giving presents although I’m sure I did it. I liked the other days the best, like when we did educational classes or birthday parties or wedding favors. Those were fun. Oh…and I liked tasting our products and naming them.
Ya once I had a family that’s exactly why I had to leave retail. I loved the daze but I couldn’t be a mom when it mattered most.