A sadness regarding holidays

I don’t have a lot of sad thoughts about my son anymore. Somewhere along the way I chose to celebrate the 22 years I got to have him in my life rather than dwell on the sadness and sorrow of him not being here anymore.

I was driving yesterday and for some reason I thought about Christmas decorations which made me think of all the items my son and I accumulated over the course of his life and that I always meant to turn over to him so he could enjoy them, hopefully, with his own family one day.

I haven’t looked at those things since the last Christmas he was alive and at my house. The Christmas after he died on November 19th I couldn’t face those sentimental objects so I went with a whole different theme for the Christmas tree — an angel tree. I hand-made angels ornaments of jewelry wire and ribbon and went with a color scheme of white and gold. It ended up being a beautiful tree of purity and light. In case you didn’t notice, creative outlets are a good therapy for me when I am hurting.

The last few years I haven’t bothered to put up any decorations for the holidays and opt to travel out-of-town over Christmas. Christmas is about family and I don’t have any and trying to fake it doesn’t feel good so I go do something else and enjoy that.

So now I have two sets of Christmas tree decorations in my storage area. One set I’m not personally attached to so they’re no big deal.

The other is the sadness referred to in the title. What do I do with the ornaments I bought for my son each year? What do I do with all the great memories those objects hold that would be meaningless to anyone but he or I? No answers for that one yet, so I just continue to hold on to them.

Maybe I will get to the point I can go through the boxes some day and maybe even donate the items that don’t have his name on them so some other family can enjoy the decorations. I don’t know. For right now, Christmas decorations are a sadness.