Bring on the Joy

This year, I am welcoming Christmas (as early as retailers, neighbors, friends, and radio stations want to bring it) with open arms.

I understand why people get upset when Christmas music starts and wreaths are hung the day after Halloween, sometimes even earlier.  It already feels like we rush home from work, just in time to throw together a semi-nutritious meal, bathe our kids, and get ready for the next day... to do it all. over. again.  Why rush the holidays too?  I really do get it.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday too!  Could there really be a better day than to eat to our hearts' content with the people who mean the most to us without pretense of gifts and price tags?  To find happiness in what we have and what we've been through?  Certainly not.

I was one of those people who absolutely despised hearing or seeing anything Christmas-related before Thanksgiving was officially over, and even preferred it to wait until December came around.  But then, I had a child.  I found out I was pregnant less than two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2009.  I spent the holidays exhausted beyond comprehension, and more joyful than my wildest dreams.  I was amazed at what my body was finally doing, and I spent every waking moment planning and being grateful for that baby.  (You may think I'm exaggerating.  If you do, then you never knew me while I was pregnant.)  He's changed me in a thousand small ways, and a million big ones too.

One of the big ways is that I get to see the holidays through his excited eyes.  And Christmas?  That's just one giant joy-fest to him.  It's not even about the gifts to him.  He's too little to even understand that.  It's the lights, the people, the decorations, the parties, the parades, the Santas, the nativity under the tree!  Last year, "Santa" brought him one thing: an $83 PowerWheel.  Mommy & Daddy got him a pair of shoes (that he desperately needed).  The grandparents even managed to keep it toned down last year.  You know what he thought was the most fun part of Christmas last year?  Staying home all day, eating cinnamon rolls out of a can for breakfast, not changing out of our PJs, and watching Christmas movies.  All Christmas Day means to Dane is being allowed to stay home and play with Mommy & Daddy all day without interruption.

So you know what?  There will come a day when my son doesn't believe in the magic of Christmas.  He'll tell me he wants a gift card so he can "pick out his own clothes" when I ask him what he wants.  And he'll probably tire of hearing Christmas music on November 1.  But for now, he's amazed, and I'm along for the ride.  Let me rephrase:  I get the absolute joy of being along for the ride!  So, yeah, we'll probably put our tree up before Thanksgiving.  We'll probably listen to Christmas music during the Thanksgiving meal.  Does that make Thanksgiving any less special?  Nope.  And I for one hardly think Thanksgiving is offended.  I'm just squeezing every possible moment of joy out of each season.

PS - This does not mean that I have lost my mind enough to join in the Black Friday crowd that starts the evening of Thanksgiving!  :)

Broken Hearts Healed

Sunday is Easter.  It also happens to be our sixth wedding anniversary.  (Happy Anniversary to the best husband ever!)  As happy an occasion as an anniversary should be, when April 8th rolls around, I am always a little sad when I remember our second anniversary.

We were in Florida at my grandmother's funeral.  I was positive that our second IUI attempt had failed but was having trouble reaching our fertility clinic for confirmation.  I had just learned less than a week ago that my sweet sister-in-law was pregnant.  As excited as I was to be an aunt (to the world's funniest, most handsome nephew), I was completely heart-broken.  When the preacher mentioned my sister-in-law's pregnancy during the funeral, I didn't just feel a "lump" in my throat.  I felt like my throat had just been ripped out -- Patrick Swayze - Roadhouse style.

I was trying to be there for my dad, but I was coming apart at the seams.  I managed not to cry during her funeral.  I didn't want someone to think that I was crying for myself and not my grandmother, even though very few people in attendance knew about our fertility struggles.  I temporarily pulled myself back together for the car ride to the cemetery.  Just as we parked our car, I received that phone call I'd been waiting on.  Yep, not pregnant.  I felt like I could handle it though.  I had been taking home pregnancy tests this whole time and I was well-practiced at seeing ONE line.  I knew I wasn't pregnant anyway.  I could deal with this.

As I stepped out of the car and walked toward the burial plot, I saw my dad.  The weight of it all hit me.  The best dad in the world was burying his mother.  On our anniversary.  And I may never know what it's like to be a mother; I may never give him a grandchild.  My spirit was crushed.  The tears came.

My dad and grandmother her last Christmas (2007)

This year's anniversary plans:  Easter egg hunting and celebrating springtime and being alive with my sweet son. I hope one day he understands how much he did for us just by coming into our lives.  He reminds us how joyful life can be.  When Dane was one day old, I updated my FB status to read "My heart is healed.  Three years of disappointment and broken dreams were worth it.  This is the child we were supposed to have all along."  I still feel this way.  I can't believe our blessings when I look at him.

Isn't this face just the definition of "joy"?!

I wish you and your family the kind of joy that Dane brings us every day.  Happy Easter!