Sentimental Christmas Stockings

Stockings Belonging to Daddy, Mommy & R

 

 

" . . . And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care;

 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. . ."

From "Twas The Night Before Christmas"
By Clement Clarke Moore

 

 

These  are our sentimental Christmas stockings, hung on our fireplace every year, in hopes that Santa Claus will think we have been good and fill them with lots of treats.

 

I know they are a bit on the tacky side but they represent a lot of good feelings and great memories.

 

They don't match each other or the living room where they hang and certainly don't look like those hip and elegant stockings you see in the Pottery Barn catalogue or stockings you may see in the display windows of Sak's or Macy's but they are our Christmas stockings and we love them.

 

My son picked them out all by himself when he was five years old.  The Santa Claus stocking was for his father, the gingerbread one is for me, his mom, and the Christmas tree is for him.  I remember watching him in the store looking at all the different choices of Christmas stockings and at first I think he was a little overwhelmed.

 

He walked around and around and kept looking and picking up all the different stockings and then decided on these three.  He had such a big smile on his face when he handed them to me and was so excited that we were actually going to buy the ones he chose.

 

Every year he looks forward to hanging them up on the fireplace, even the Christmas after his father died.

 

I wasn't going to put decorations up that year because, well because, it was enough for me to get out of bed and form a complete sentence never mind dealing with Christmas decorations.  But my son insisted we get a tree and put up the rest of decorations. 

 

All that I did was buy the tree and bring the boxes down from the attic.  My son and a wonderful friend of his did the rest.  I was in and out of the room while they were working and placing the decorations anywhere they wanted.  I really didn't care what it looked like.

 

I do remember coming into the room when my son opened up the box containing the Christmas stockings and I sortof held my breath to see if he would hang two stockings or three.  At that time, my son had a lot of anger about his father which was perfectly normal.  He was angry that his father had died, that his father had left him, that his father hadn't made better health decisions and he was angry that it was Christmas and his father wasn't there. 

 

I felt a lot of these things too but there's a big difference between an adult dealing with those thoughts and feelings and a thirteen-year-old boy.

 

I watched as he held the stockings and walked towards the fireplace.  I truly expected to see him hang only two, but then he surprised me and put up all three.  He didn't say anything and neither did I.

 

It's been quite a journey since that very first Christmas after his father's death.  I admire how my son has handled this difficult situation and the adult that he has become.  He is amazing!

 

My son still loves Christmas and EVERYTHING associated with it.

 

And every year, he still always hangs three stockings.

 

Christmas in NYC

My son and I took a quick trip to New York City this past weekend, continuing a family tradition started in his childhood.  New York City is magical to us and especially so at Christmas time.

 

Yes, there are a lots of people in the city, especially around Rockefeller Center where the huge Christmas tree in all its glory is displayed, but to us it is worth the effort of manevering in and out of the crowds and then suddenly being able to break through and look up and see the thousands of dazzling lights covering the infamous Christmas tree of New York City.

 

It was rather warm for December this past weekend and also rainy and drizzly but we loved it just the same as any other year when it has sometimes been so cold that I lost the feeling in my fingertips and couldn't work the camera.

My son and I

My husband and I started taking our son to see the Christmas tree when he was about five years old.  We would sometimes stay with friends and see as many sights as we could with a toddler and it was always a fun holiday ritual take we included in our family plans for many years.  Then when my husband died, we weren't sure we wanted to go.  We talked about it many times and then other family members decided to join us and lovingly support us that year and we all met in the city.

Looking back on that painful time, I am really glad we did not break the New York Christmas tree tradition.  It has been bittersweet for me for so many years but the tradition is also something that my son just absolutely loves and looks forward to.

It took me a long time to figure this out but essentially when my life changed so much from the loss of a loved one, I needed to find a way to deal with the pain and try to also find some way to heal and move forward so I wasn't stuck in an endless loop of grieving.  I thought that by moving forward I would be leaving the memories of my husband/my son's father behind me as I took steps to rebuild my life.

But I'm not leaving or saying good-bye to those memories and that special time.  I think what I really am doing is healing from bringing those memories with me and then creating new memories as my son and I experience the same family traditions.

How could I ever really forget those memories?  I can't.  Now I let them be with me but also try to make sure those memories don't stop me or hold me back from what I want to do today. 

My picture above may not be the best so here is a short YouTube video featuring this year's lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center so you can experience the magic of the tree for yourself:

Humor Therapy

Do you know there is actually a medical term or name for using humor to help yourself feel better?

According to WebMD, humor therapy or therapeutic humor, purposely uses the power of smiles and laughter to promote healing and distract the person from pain, or in this case, the emotional confusion permeating your life while grieving.

New grief is all about learning to live with a sense of unreality.  Unfortunately, until you actually experience this raw emotion, you can't really imagine how it feels.  You think you know, you think you can conjure up those feelings of deep pain but it doesn't work that way.  I think that's why people who have been lucky enough not to experience a death in their families think you can "get over" the loss of a loved one in six months or a year.  To put it simply, grieving is not the opposite of happiness. 

For years, you wake up next to a person, talk to them every day, eat with them, love them and share everything with them.  Then, suddenly, instantly, they aren't with you anymore.  But you are expected to carry on.  And somehow you manage to figure out a way to do this.  It may not be what everyone else thinks you should do but it works for you and that's what's important.  There are no magic formulas.  You find yourself saying things such as: "I can't believe he (or she) is gone." "This is so unreal."  "Where is he (or she)?"  "I would just feel a little better if I knew exactly where he (or she) is; that they are somewhere where I know they are okay.  Do you think they're okay?"

Even now, eight years later, I wonder where my husband actually is.  Okay, maybe I made you laugh by saying that, but it's true. 

I try to imagine that he is doing something he really liked A LOT because that always makes me smile.  Depending on the time of year, sometimes I think he's at  a Yankees game, eating a hotdog and wearing his favorite hat or he's at a Giants football game, eating a hotdog, wearing his other favorite hat and screaming his head off.  Then again, maybe he's at the beach lounging in a chair, reading or swimming.  Sometimes, I imagine he is with his friends who have also died and they are all sitting around in some heavenly bar drinking and telling each other non-stop stories.  I don't know. . . Maybe he's doing all of those things.  Or maybe's he a child again.  After awhile, I have to put the brakes on myself because I start to get overwhelmed by the very idea of it.

But I think I'm pretty sure about one thing:  he's probably not at the cemetary.  While there is a marker there for him, it's more of a touchstone for us, the people who cared about him and loved him.  Sometimes we go there and do silly things that we think he would like.  We've scattered his favorite cookies all over his grave, released balloons and arranged flowers that were his favorite color.  Once, we were going to put hash marks in the grass like a football field but we figured we would get into trouble for that so we put the kibash on that idea, at least temporarily.

Continuing in the same vein of therapeutic humor, one of the more irreverant things my family ever did was in the cemetary after my husband was just buried.  It was early December and he still didn't have a marker on his grave yet.  It had snowed and we kept guessing where he was and we fogot to look for the metal ring in the ground so we all kept guessing different places which got to be ridiculous.  We were in the right neighborhood but not in the exact spot.  Finally one day some people in my family had had it with the guessing game and the lack of a marker.  I think it was one of those "perfect storm" moments when strong emotions came together and they decided to act.

They saw all these small Christmas trees on a large headstone and spontaneously decided to take one and put it in the place where they thought my husband was buried.  I can't even remember if it was the right place or not.  Anyway, then they put lots of other Christmas decorations around the tree they had erected in the snow to mark off his grave so they would definitely know where he was and where to go the next time.

As always, I know they acted out of love plus you have to remember that they were trying to deal with their own feelings of loss.  It was our first Christmas without him and it was important to them that they knew exactly where he was and so they fixed it.  Grief is definitely an uncharted journey that takes you AND others to some funny places.