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Bonus Christmas

I can't help but focus on all the good things in my life now at Christmas time. It feels like we've come a million miles from last Christmas - a holiday that was celebrated despite a six week old, a major and long-lasting arthritis/fibro flare, and a mom who was still facing two weeks of radiation treatments and another surgery for breast cancer.

I've shed a lot of tears this Christmas over last Christmas.

This year, I'm celebrating with a happy, healthy one year old who brings me so much joy that it overwhelms me sometimes. I can't imagine anything better in life than getting to be her mommy and being on the receiving end of her thousands of noisy kisses.

I'm celebrating with a husband who is able to take all my ups and downs in stride and loves me anyway. He does an incredible job of providing for our little family and taking care of his girls. And he is every bit the wonderful daddy to Briony that I knew he'd be when I met him.

I'm celebrating with my entire family at home for Christmas - including my brother Aaron and sister-in-law Cait who are visiting from Vancouver and my grandma who's home from her second unexpected hospital stay this month. Having everyone home for the holidays is a 'bonus blessing' that I don't take for granted.

Maybe most importantly, I'm celebrating with my parents. These two incredible people have endured some big challenges in the last two years - challenges that could easily have taken down a less stable marriage. I've had the amazing privilege of getting to watch them journey together through the valley and it's made me a better person, a better daughter, and a better wife and mother.

Every Christmas we get to spend with my mom now feels like the best gift we could have ever asked for. It's a Bonus Christmas. And we are so incredibly blessed to be celebrating it this weekend.

But those laws of the universe and equal and opposite reactions apply to the holidays more than any other time. The full measure of our happiness is equal to the depths of grief and sadness experienced by families who haven't been as lucky as mine. Christmas is a terrible, terrible time to be missing someone. So let's all do what we can for these friends today and be their little Christmas miracle. Let's pray for them. Let's pick up the phone. Let's send a quick note. Let's drop off some cookies. Let's just drench them in love - which is the point of this season after all.

Labels: Aaron, Briony, Caitlin, Christmas, Family, My Friends, The Boy, The C Word

posted by Lindsay @ 11:08 AM