Decking the Halls

Last year, I survived Christmas. 

There were no perfectly picked cards mailed out. No stockings were hung and no lights at this home were strung. There wasn't even a tree. Not a real one, not an artificial, not a tree at all. In fact, I don't even think there was Christmas music because it was more than I could bear.

With an empty home, an impending divorce, and a child so deeply longed for, there was simply no energy to celebrate. I was absent of joy and excitement and I couldn't even muster the ability to pretend. One more "tis the season of good cheer" quite possible could have sent me over the edge. So, I simply survived. 

I took a three hour nap during my family's Christmas gathering at my grandparent's house  because I didn't have the strength to even converse. And, when my immediate family went to the Plaza for our annual shopping/dinner tradition, despite going late and leaving early, I was nothing short of miserable. There just wasn't anything in me. I was depleted, I was empty, and I was just going to each event to check it off the list and longing for January to come so the holidays were behind me.

 Aly, who had always blasted Christmas music with the passing of Halloween, who loved to bundle up tight in search of the perfect tree in the field, and who tinseled anything that wasn't moving, just wasn't Aly.

Looking back {friends that just a year ago...only a year!}, I just want to hug the person whom I was. That Aly didn't believe that a new normal would come. That Aly didn't think that joy or happiness for Christmas let alone life would ever be felt again. I will forever remember what it felt like to be so broken. What a different a year makes.

My Christmas cards are ready to be mailed out, the carols started the first of November, and come Thanksgiving weekend, this home began to overflow with garland and sparkly lights. 

I know I have said it before, but it can not be said enough...He redeems. I know it to be true because this Christmas season, there is joy, there is hope, and there is peace within me.

Come let us adore Him.