Christmas is gone. I felt it when I walked through our still-fully-decorated flat in the middle of January. Everything was in its place, even the place settings from our Christmas table and the table cloth, but Christmas – in the “feeling” sense – was gone.
I started taking down garlands of golden balls yesterday, followed by the yellow manger-like straw and the IKEA snowflake lights came out of the jar. My favourite baubles will stay hanging on our tree branch. I can’t let go of them for now.
Mothers are recorders – first Christmas, first high chair, first crib, first smile (well, Husband got that one), first laugh, first tooth, first steps, first crawl, first roll and first foods. Each one is exciting. You feel proud of this tiny person’s ability to reach another moment, another milestone. Each one is bittersweet because it is another step of baby’s life away from you.
You want that as well. No one desires for their child to remain in the same place physically, emotionally and spiritually their whole life. We want them to grow in every way. But there is a silent sadness in my heart with each step Small One takes in the direction of independence. I hold on to these moments as I put our first Christmas together into boxes hoping that memory will not fail me as the years pass and praying for a strong heart to believe that the best is still to come.
1 thought on “remembering christmas”
Every day with a little one grows better and better. Their personalities grow, they make you laugh more and more… every stage you think you love best will be trumped by the next. Still, as life has unfurled for me, I have also realized that in a big picture sense, each day grows harder and harder. More pain, more trouble, more heartache. Not even necessarily my own… just the deeper realization or larger scale understanding of the pain of others. I know this will increase as Shepherd grows… his pain will be my pain… his fears will be my fears. But this is good. As he and our family go through these pains, and become more aware of the pain of others, we can cry out to the only Savior that gives us hope. This is a beautiful opportunity to teach! If we didn’t all grow to see the brokenness of the world, we would never see our need for a savior. Our true joy will be standing before our King when wrongs will be made right. And I pray along with you that our children will be standing there with us, sweet friend…