Christmas Dread

Today I put in my leave slip to have off work for the week of Christmas.  I have gotten a few Christmas presents.  These are things that I usually look forward to and enjoy doing.   This year there is no joy in planning for Christmas.  Usually I try to have all my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving as I hate fighting the crowds between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is why I am already thinking about Christmas.  Maybe that is why I have felt down and just “blah” lately.  I don’t want to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas without Scott.  I just want to avoid the pain, but that isn’t possible.  

Usually I look forward to hearing the Christmas music on the radio nonstop.  Scott use to complain about the nonstop Christmas music.  He would get sick of it quickly.  I loved it, I think since it was only for a short time.  This year, every time I hear Christmas music in the stores or random places, it pulls my mood down.  Scott always enjoyed watching Jaelyn open her Christmas presents.  I would get frustrated with him, because he would always pick out the gifts for Jaelyn that needed to be put together.  Putting things together was not Scott’s talent and always fell to me.  I enjoy putting things together, the frustrating part was that the toys he bought were not usually small or quick jobs to put them together.  One year he bought Jaelyn this huge dinosaur set – with structures to be put together and dinosaurs to put in the playset.  Of course it didn’t come with instructions, so I had to try to put it together just using the picture on the box.  I think it took me about two hours.  I don’t think Jaelyn ever played with it unless Scott was playing with her.  It is hard to pick out gifts for her and think of ideas for her without his input and knowing that he won’t be there to see her open them.

When I think back over our lives since last Christmas, we have experienced so many changes.  This is certainly not what I would have pictured for my life, not even in my wildest dreams.  While there are some good changes coming, it is hard to take joy in them or look forward to them, knowing what we have lost.  Each “first” since Scott’s death is a hard hurdle to get through – the first trip to the cabin, Jaelyn’s first birthday without her daddy, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, first time without celebrating Scott’s birthday, first anniversary, first father’s day, first time celebrating my birthday without Scott, not to mention all the other family birthdays and holidays. 

We have planned to break with traditions this year for Christmas and do things differently.  We will spend Christmas weekend at the cabin with my parents and then travel to Scott's family in Shippensburg and stay there for a couple of days over Christmas Day.  Hopefully the change will make it easier, although there is always the hole when we get together as a family.  I know that the hole will be even more obvious and painful at Christmas.

I’m really missing the companionship of my best friend.  I miss having Scott to share my life, to tell about all the little mundane things that happen throughout the day, to bounce ideas off of, to laugh with, to vent to, do fun things together.  I’m not sure I ever valued those things as highly as I do now.  We have a tendency to take things for granted, especially the little things.  I get overwhelmed sometimes making some of the big financial decisions that have come up and without my parents and friends to bounce ideas off of, I think that I would be hesitant to make decisions and second guess the ones that I would have made. 

I know that we will get through this, one day at a time.  There are just some days that even one day at a time is overwhelming.