Dabbling about a Different Christmas than all the rest...

This isn't the first Christmas in 54 years I've spent without my Mom.  There were others.

The first Christmas away from my Mom was right after Van was sent to Fort Carson, Colorado.  Mom and Dad came to visit us in our matchbook-sized apartment in the fall, but they didn't return at Christmas.  Van and I, just 21 and 19 at the time, tried to be brave and grown up.  We opened our girfts to each other and then the packages our parents had mailed out.  For dinner, since a turkey wouldn't fit into the tiny motel-size oven in our apartment, I roasted two Cornish game hens.  Everything got finished cooking at different times.  The potatoes were soft and ready to be mashed an hour before the birds were cooked.  Finally, the gravy was the consistency of thick cement.  I threw it against the refrigerator.  We ate what was edible in that sad meal and spent the rest of the afternoon missing "HOME", knowing everyone was gathered round heaping tables of wonderful food, little cousins singing and dancing and someone picking out tunes on the old upright piano.  But we got through it.  The refrigerator got cleaned off and we bundled up and went for a walk at the foot of Pike's Peak and watched huge flakes, the size of small down feathers, twirl down from the early dark sky.

We spent several Christmases in Germany without family, but twice my Mom came to visit us for the holidays and once Van's Mom did, too.  We got to introduce them to the German Christkindlmarkts in the center of the city.  We shared wonderful holidays food served right on the street.

One year we were in Savannah, Georgia, for Christmas, and since there were several other wives in my area that weren't having back home family come for Christmas, we got together and planned a Christmas Eve Party for the kids.  Every child was to bring a wrapped toy and exchange and then unwrap a gift before going home.  It was fun and gave us all a sense of "being in this together."

No matter where we were, however, if we weren't going to be able to make it "home" for Christmas, we got deluged by UPS and the mailman with lots of boxes of beautifully wrapped goodies to put under the tree for all of us.  Our Moms used to tuck in all sorts of extras into those boxes, little ornaments, chocolates, postage stamps, stationary, etc. so we were sure to have a great Christmas.

This is the first time in my life that I'm celebrating Christmas, but my Mom isn't on Earth.   In Germany, I knew how many hours were between us, and I knew that at about the time we were sitting down to our meal, Mom and Dad would just be getting up.  But I've no Mom this year.  If you're celebrating with your family, give them all a few extra hugs and kisses.  Time goes past so fast, and then you can never go back and "redo."

I believe my Mom is celebrating with my Dad this year for the first time since 1985.  She's surrounded by her Mom and Dad, Aunts, Uncles, and brothers that loved her so much.  I miss her.  Merry Christmas to you in heaven, Mom.  Do you miss me, too?