December 2022

I experienced two deaths on February 20, 2021. The death of my husband, Chaz, and the death of my future. That’s how it felt anyways. I know that I still had a future but it wasn’t the future I wanted. I couldn’t fathom a future where Chaz wasn’t with me.

For the rest of 2021 I was surviving. Barely sometimes. I struggled thinking about the future. Daydreaming about the future used to be one of my pastimes. But now I couldn’t picture what my life was going to look like or what I wanted my life to look like in the next 2 months, 6 months, a year or 5 years.

I dreaded the approach of the new year. I didn’t want to enter a year that Chaz was never going to be alive in. But I do not possess the power to stop time so January 1, 2022 came and I continued to survive.

The beginning of 2022 was a lot. So much happened over the course of a few months. It was a heavy and emotional time. I went through the whole process of buying a house, my grandfather passed away, the one year anniversary of Chaz passing away, packing up the home that I lived in with Chaz and moving into a new house.

But sometime in April I noticed that I didn’t feel like I was surviving anymore but living. I was feeling more settled in my life. My joy was starting to come back. I started thinking about the future again. My future no longer felt dead.

My head never forgot God’s promise of ‘plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope’ Jeremiah 29:11 ESV. It took my heart a little bit to remember. It felt good be excited about the future again. It still feels good.

In June 2022, with expectation and excitement I took a step into a possible direction for my future. And I’m so glad that I did! It’s been redeeming, challenging, fun and full of love.

It feels good to be excited for the new year. But I understand if you are dreading what comes at the end of this week. And it’s ok if you don’t want to look to the future yet. We all have seasons where we can only focus on one day at a time, one hour at a time or one minute. But if you feel the nudge of hope let it come in and sit with it for a bit because it’s ok to move forward when you are ready to.

The definition of tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

I love having Christmas traditions. I look forward to them every year. So many great memories were formed from doing traditions year after year.

But something I have learned about traditions is that sometimes they evolve or change a little bit. Traditions can be flexible.

Sometimes traditions change whether you want it to or not. Maybe you’ve moved away from family or your family moved away. Maybe someone who was always there for Christmas is no longer here. That changes the traditions.

To me it’s the people that I’m with that make the traditions meaningful, not the tradition itself.

Angel Tree

Growing up my mom had this little tree that she would decorate with angel ornaments. I loved this tree. It was one of my favorite decorations that came out every Christmas. I inherited that tree and ornaments when my parents moved out of the country. The tradition evolved. The tree and angel ornaments had a new home. I also decided that every year I was going to get a new angel ornament. Sometimes two. The collection has grown so much that now I decorate my big tree with them. The tradition of having an angel tree still has the same meaning to me even though it looks different from when I was a child. Since my parents have moved, we have not spent a Christmas together but when I pull out my mom’s angel ornaments and hang them next to my angel ornaments, it feels like she is with me.

Pīrāgi 

Another important Christmas tradition is making pīrāgi. Since I was a little girl I have been making pīrāgi and I have so many memories of being in the kitchen with my grandma, mom and other family members. I love that my grandma taught me how to make these delicious ‘bacon buns’ from our culture. It was heartbreaking the first Christmas after my grandma passed. But we still made pīrāgi. The tradition evolved. Instead of grandma making the dough and filling, it was my mom. I also started to share this tradition with my friends by hosting a pīrāgi baking party. After my parents moved the tradition evolved again. Now I make the dough and the filling and I still invite friends to be apart of this tradition.

Because of Chaz

The best change to this tradition came about from Chaz. Because of Chaz I have 3 nieces that I have had the joy of sharing this tradition with for 7 Christmases. Last Christmas was the first Christmas since Chaz died. My sister-in-law and I made the plan to still bake pīrāgi with the girls but gave each other permission to cancel at the last moment. We didn’t need to cancel and it was a good time with sharing memories, catching up and shedding some tears for Chaz.

Continuing in Grief

When a loved one has passed away it is hard to want to continue doing life the same way. But you also don’t want to have to do things differently. But things are different. I had a choice after Chaz died. I could live my life alone and be bitter about the things that were different. But a better choice, and the choice that I made, was to live my life with people and evolve. Just like traditions.

This year will be my second Christmas without Chaz. Last Christmas was hard. I felt alone. I felt angry. I cried. I powered through days. I spent days in bed. But I also smiled. I laughed. Spent time with people and did my best to enjoy the Christmas season. It was all so different. This year isn’t better or worse. Just different. Same feelings but some are stronger and some are weaker.

Christmas 2021

Last year I didn’t know if I was going to decorate my home for Christmas. I’ve always loved Christmas and I decided that even though Chaz was not with me I still wanted to celebrate. But that it was going to look and feel different. I knew decorating was going to take energy and I wasn’t sure if I had any to spare. So I chose to be ok if I didn’t decorate. But it turned out that I did decorate. I remember sitting on the couch not really doing anything and thought why not bring in the tubs of decorations. So I did. And then I started opening them and I naturally began to decorate. It didn’t feel forced. I was enjoying going through this rhythm of unpacking decorations and putting up the tree.

I released a lot of tears and pain especially when I got to the ornaments. Every year that Chaz and I were together, I bought a picture frame ornament and picked a photo of us from that year. I loved that tradition. It made me so happy to see our ornament collection grow every year. I proudly displayed those ornaments on the tree and shed more tears.

Christmas 2022

This year I knew I wanted to decorate for Christmas and I was going to make the time to do so. I’m in a new house and I was excited to find new places for my decorations. The tears and pain were still there. Especially when I unpacked the picture frame ornaments and being reminded that the collection wasn’t growing anymore.

This year I did not feel like putting these ornaments on the tree. It’s too painful and that’s ok. I actually don’t need pictures or material items to remember Chaz. Everything about him is in my heart. Forever.

The most perfect container

I still wanted to do something special with these ornaments. I have this container that must have belonged to Chaz (his name is written on it) and I think his aunt found while she was going through family Christmas things. The lid is the back of a truck and the license plate says ‘HOWDY’. If you knew Chaz you definitely were greeted with a ‘howdy’ at one point. This is the most perfect container to hold these memories. I placed each ornament into the container with Corbin at my side sniffing each one. Then I placed it next to Chaz’s urn above his stocking which is now Corbin’s.

And at any point I can open up that container and look at his face, remember our history and the love.

“And may you bestow on your very own first-time situations the same grace, kindness, and honor we give to them.” Honest Advent by Scott Erickson

How often do we show kindness and empathy for others but don’t show the same grace and kindness to ourselves? If this holiday season is a ‘first’ without a loved one or the ‘first’ holiday season with very different circumstances be kind to yourself. Be gracious. Honor your feelings.