Christmas Mourning: Embracing Loss, Change, and the Joy of Building New Traditions

Nick and I are playing host for part of Christmas this year, and I am counting down the hours until all the madness unfolds! Lexi and Jordan’s family is coming to stay with us on the 23^rd, and Jana and T’s family is coming to stay with Dad and Dina, so Christmas morning we’re going to have FIVE little boys under age 7!

We have no fewer than four big meals planned, Christmas Eve mass, games, cards, and I’m sure countless other memories!  Three more days until the hoopla begins.

Growing up, holidays were always a big deal in our household (all holidays, not just Thanksgiving/Christmas, but especially those). As young as I can remember there were traditions and celebrations and a lot of holiday hubbub. For Christmas, the constants were Christmas Eve mass, checking to see if Santa came (and if he was still there and caught you, he would turn you into an elf and take you back to the North Pole with him…thank you, Dad, for turning Christmas into a mini terror), big meals, and big families coming together for more big meals!

I had always known such magic during the holidays, so I really didn’t understand it when the clouds rolled in a few years ago, and a seasonal storm started in my life. Even though there was merriment and magical moments, throughout the holiday season as a whole I wasn’t able to find the light in my heart that I had always known. Recently I was having a conversation with Dad about how these past several years a heaviness really came and settled over the holidays for me, and how just in the past few months it’s finally occurred to me where it all stemmed from.

We lost Mom more years ago than you can count on one hand now, and while Mom hasn’t been here for the holidays unfolding, and that was sad and challenging at first, we all expected that. It was all part of what I’ve referenced in the past—when you lose someone close you brace for impact, and missing someone special throughout the holidays is something you brace for, something you can be prepared for. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact you, but it doesn’t have to sneak up on you. What I didn’t understand or prepare for, however, was that losing Mom wasn’t where it started and ended.

Long after my mom passed there were little parts of our lives still drying up and withering away, still dying, that we didn’t plan for or expect. The ripple effects that you cannot foresee. And for every impactful loss there is a mourning period. These past few years haven’t been a continuation of mourning for my mom, they have been their own tiny funerals and grieving periods, for the loss of those traditions and constants which helped make me who and what I am today. Each year the holidays were bringing with them deaths, of this tradition and that, and even though I didn’t know it, I was mourning their loss all season long.

I never knew I would lose, so never thought to mourn, the staples in our lives that run through the holidays. I never thought to mourn the loss of getting presents from Santa like socks, deodorant and school supplies. I never thought to mourn the loss of every clothing gift being far too big to wear (to the day she died my mom was convinced I was size XL in everything). There were so many things that I had not yet mourned the loss of, like Christmas trees with all our childhood ornaments, or snowmobiling into the New Year.

In all of life the only constant is change, and to more gracefully navigate those changes, some of us set aside a handful of the most special things in life and call them “traditions.” Those become little things that are earmarked NOT to change. Those become the things that are prioritized above all the hustle and bustle, the foundation around which all else fits. Like the Christmas snow, we know that long after it melts away we can expect it again next year, so long as we don’t experience complete climate change.

I didn’t know ahead of time that our family climate wasn’t just changing by one. The loss of mom—a change by one—led to the amazing additions of Dina, Nick, Jett, Brantley and Anson. The loss of the Lewis Clark Valley (for most of us), and the addition of the Treasure Valley. What began as the lose of one lead to the addition of many and much, so many blessings…that were leading to the death, a little at a time, of those things earmarked to stay forever the same.

Because it came coupled with so many blessings, without even knowing it I’d lost major parts of my base, a house with a crumbling foundation. Yes, Mom was gone but that was something I mentally prepared for. All these other things were disappearing now, too, the very things put in place to help cope with the changing nature of life, and I wasn't mentally prepared for that. And the holiday clouds rolled in.

One of Mom's favorite sayings was, "This, too, shall pass." And just like she said they would, those storm clouds have finally passed. I am now embracing the responsibility and privilege of building warm, comforting, exciting traditions into my own little family, and I am so excited for that opportunity! Our future is a blank canvas, capable of being filled with yellows, golds and silvers, with glitter and shimmer, all the brightness we can handle! The death of nearly all the traditions that strengthened me though life is the birth of an opportunity to build new traditions, untouched and without any tracks. It took me awhile to recognize that, but like all things in life, this storm, too, has passed.

I cannot predict the future so I don’t know how long I (and/or Nick) will get to build and strengthen the traditions in our family. I can only hope that in the time allowed I am able to help build the kind of foundation that I was afforded, that provides strength and security not just in the moments we’re gathered together in celebration, but in each day of the year we are not gathered together. Traditions that would be worth mourning, if they were lost.

To those who have recently experienced a major loss, my Christmas wish for you is through all the change life and loss bring, that there be just enough stability that your traditions live on. And to those of you who have too much climate change to maintain those traditions, my Christmas wish for you is self-awareness. We cannot choose to grow past challenge until we’re able to acknowledge and understand it. My wish for you is awareness of the tiny deaths you didn’t expect, and optimism for the blank canvas that leaves behind for you. Even if you can’t let in the light right now, that you can find comfort and strength in knowing that the light is still available to you, when you’re able to grow into it.

I hope you all have the perfect plans for you and yours, and are expectant of pure craziness and happiness, all wrapped up in one. Merry Christmas!