The Grinch

Over the past few years you might say I may have lost my spirit of Christmas.

The over commercialization and materialization of such a spiritual occasion became really over bearing for me.

We have been in transition; from couple to family, from one continent to another, from house to house to house.

The season would hit me and I wasn’t ready. My feeling of Christmas fading as I moved further away from childhood and what those traditions meant to me.

• The decorating of Gram’s tree.
• The pageant at All Saints, singing in the choir.
• Midnight mass and opening that one present before we went to bed.
• Having a quiet Christmas morning with coffee and presents and then going over to the Belanger’s for the big family get together.

Yes, I’m mixing the childhood and young adult Christmas together but they blend and those are my memories.

It just isn’t the same anymore.

It is not supposed to be. We are ever evolving creatures. My role has changed. I want to create an atmosphere that my kids will look back on with fondness. For the last three years though it wasn’t happening. But that is changing. At 3.5, Stella is much more aware of her surroundings and retaining a lot more information than she did in the past.

And I have to say, this year has been much more fun. Stella helped decorate the tree. We told her the stories of various ornaments from our past. She stands and looks at the tree, occasionally rearranging ornaments to fit her mood. Emmett has gotten in on the action too with his little corner of the tree where he puts on and mostly removes little straw ornaments.

Stella is learning about Christmas in preschool and comes back with lots of stories. She knows about the trip to Bethlehem. Btw; did you know that Jesus has a sister? Stella informed us of this as she was playing with Oma’s nativity set and lining up all the appropriate characters.

In Germany, Nicolas comes and puts something in your shoes on the 6^th of December. She was so excited. She properly polished her boots and set them by the door. And with wild excitement she ran down to look the next morning marveling at the little packages in everyone’s shoes.

Now she asks when Santa is coming.

So we come full circle. Now we start our family traditions. Mother and Father are setting the stage and I can’t look more forward to it.