Oh the joy of the Christmas season begins!

Christmas has become a very important milestone marker for my family. Last year right before Thanksgiving my mother almost died of a heart attack. When Christmas came around last year it wasn't about presents or gift giving but being thankful my mother and I were still together to celebrate her birthday on December 25th(yes that's her birthday). This year my mother almost died from a MRSA infection in her lungs. After being in the hospital for a month, having emergency surgery to remove half of one lung and then having to have IV antibiotics being pumped into her for an additional month we've made it one more year, one more birthday. Every year now before Thanksgiving I begin to put up Christmas decorations. Stringing lights has become my therapy. I was a total wreck during my mothers first hospital stay from her first heart attack and every night when I got home I'd pull boxes and boxes of decor out of the garage, blast Christmas music and decorate until I passed out. This year my life has been filled with anxiety attacks and depression, along with my mother suffering from bouts of depression but once again the approach of Christmas seems to make everything better again, forgetting briefly of our griefs and celebrating that yet another birthday is soon to come. I hope everyone forgets about what they want to get for Christmas and appreciates what they still have. I'm incredibly thankful that I get to complain with my mother that Christmas tunes aren't playing on the radio yet, I'm thankful when they do start playing that we can sing the Christmas carols together again, even if we do sing horribly. I'm thankful that I can still hang my great grandmothers tree ornament on the tree with my mother. I'm thankful I can listen to her gripe about the eggnog she just bought being gone the next day. I'm thankful to still have my stocking filled by Santa Clause while I sleep even if he does fill it with candy that only santa clause likes.

I hope everyone has a good Christmas this year and appreciates what money can't buy.

A very nice outlook for the season. Thank you for sharing this. I'm spending the last day here in Virginia with my Mother who has some dementia and I always miss her living so far away in Tacoma. So I really appreciate your feelings.
FLR

Very well said. I hope you and your mom have many more together. My mother passed 14 years ago. I would give anything to have her here to spend Christmas with.

Again, very well said and Merry Christmas.