A Christmas To Remember

A Christmas to Remember
By Meredith Kendall

The snow was falling ever so lightly and the smell of sugar cookies permeated the air. Our laughter echoed within the tree line of the swamp as we made our way back from the frozen pond. Even though we complained all the way back to the house about our feet being extremely wet and cold from spending too much time ice skating, we knew that grandma’s freshly made hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows would be waiting for us as we hit the back stoop.

For me this time of year used to be a joyous occasion. The holiday started and ended with Grandma’s house.

Dinner.

Presents.

Cookies.

Family, immediate and extended, gathered around the piano, singing all the famous Christmas hymns.

THEN! my world was rocked. Out of the blue, my mom and dad got divorced, and what seemed too quick, my mom remarried, and then my grandma, who was my glue through it all, died.

After that, Christmas was never the same.

Christmas became more about what parent gets you what for the holiday.

It was no longer about family and lingering. It was full of anger, fights and fear.
I left home at 18, never to return.

Even after starting my family, I made excuses as to why I couldn’t go home for Christmas.
Sorry mom, I have to work.

Sorry mom, the kids are in programs.

Sorry….

After my children were married and had families themselves, I finally made the trek back home for the holiday. I was met with the same competition of years past. Who could dictate the most out of my schedule. And to make things worse, I was made to feel guilty when I had to leave.

In 2013 I entered a new phase of life: Empty Nest… which reared its ugly head with depression. With the kids all married and families of their own, I would receive one phone call for about 1 minute and that was it. They were busy and now had lives of their own. That year my tree didn’t even get totally decorated. Matter of fact, my granddaughter actually told me it was the ugliest tree she had ever seen. She was five. I realized I was doing what I do best: Stay busy so that no one could see my pain.
I wish I could say that I have mastered getting through the holidays without remembering the pain of my past, but every year I think I do better. The one thing I do know is that God has shown me the importance of being present for my family.

It took God moving me over 800 miles away from my children and grandchildren to realize that I had missed the point of God allowing me to be a mom and a Nana. He had to strip me of all my titles and my ability to hide behind the mask of staying busy.

Even as I write this, satan is using my spiritual gift of empathy to lure me into getting involved in Christmas give-a-ways for those in need. Don’t mistake my not wanting to participate with these events; my challenge is God has specifically given me a charge to invest all my energies on my children and grandchildren, since He made a way for me to move back after two years away.
For many years at Christmas time I would be so busy doing “the Lords work” that my children suffered. At one point my youngest told me that she didn’t understand why God would have you care more about other people when they didn’t appreciate my family’s sacrifice.

I now see the damage I have done in my children’s lives, thinking I was doing the Lord’s work, when in reality, I was doing what I knew best, delve into a project so that you don’t have to become your own project.

So, as we come into the holiday season, I am looking forward to having my grandchildren over to make cookies and drink hot chocolate and having my children and their spouses over for dinner. I am also reminding myself this chapter is full of blank pages and I can choose to redeem the ending.
I am looking forward to this year becoming the Christmas we remember as the changing point of our family history.