Christmas Memories Made

Another Christmas has come and gone. More memories were made. Our church had a Christmas Eve service this year, which is only the second year they have done this. Little AoA has become my church buddy, and loves going whenever we can.

We kept our tradition of having a collection of gifts to open on Christmas Eve. This year, there were Nutcracker outfits for Little AoA’s dolls. She had fun dressing them and doing a little photo shoot recreating scenes from The Nutcracker.

My mom and I took gifts to my aunt in a local nursing home. This is the little tree I put up for her. She had lots of sweet little gifts that she had received from visiting churches.

This is my aunt modeling a hat she got from the church visitors. She really loved it.

This is one of my favorite charts, because it is so true! I love socks! I love giving and receiving them to other lovers of socks. Last year I discovered a company called “World’s Softest Socks”. They are a little pricey, but easily become my favorite, “special” socks.

In typical sibling fashion, 13 year old son noticed that Little AoA had more to untapped than he did. She had a lot of smaller things like books, notebooks, and music books. Since October, I had been trying to get teenager to make an Amazon list or tell me what he wanted. He put one thing on his list (which he received), and acted like he was just annoyed with me asking. I had let it go, and figured that he would find some things after Christmas. I spent years trying to make the kids even, and ended up giving teenager things that were never even unpackaged. This is part of who he is. He takes longer than is typical, to process things that are not in his hyper-focused realm. It can be frustrating to deal with, but it is just not worth getting upset about.

Then there are the unpleasant memories that float around in the back of my mind, of the dad walking out on us Christmas Eve 2012. Thoughts then wander to current litigation, which has already cost more than years worth of Christmas holidays and vacations…. what a shame. The frustrating part is, that the whole issue could have been dealt with if the dad would just communicate, rather than go through an attorney (I think this is his 9th or 10th attorney). It should have gone to mediation first, which was not even attempted. It will most likely backfire on him. I can not control what he does or doesn’t do. I know the two kids would have much rather been able to take a trip or gotten gifts from their dad, over being dragged through a field of lies by their dad. I don’t understand why he doesn’t see this, but then, I can’t fix it.

Memories, both good and meh….. new traditions….New Hope…..

How was your Christmas?

~AoA