It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

A short piece about good news, coming late to the Christmas party, and feeling all the feelings.

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash

If you saw my previous post, you’ll know that the last month has been a tough and worrying time. But now our girl is out of the hospital, and she’s home, continuing her recovery.

All we needed for Christmas?

Well, yes, but …

Of course now she’s home, we want to have a Christmas, with all that means. We want to get together with family, friends and if we can, do the things that we usually do. We’re craving a sense of normality after the craziness of the last few weeks. At the same time, we’re longing just to sleep and wake up when it’s all over.

But Christmas can still happen in some shape or form in the aftermath of a storm. Some things have had to go, but MS has made Christmas look a little different for me over the last few years anyway. I’m used to pivoting and doing things in a new way, pacing myself and resting. Maybe it won’t look too different this year after all.

I ordered presents, by frantic online shopping, horizontal on my bed, sooo much later than planned. I think they have all arrived! There’s a tree, and most of the decorations are up. Many mince pies have been eaten, but 2024 is a fallow year for me sending Christmas cards, with one or two exceptions. And as I’m no longer head chef for Christmas lunch (another MS casualty), my family will arrive with trays of pre-roasted veg, soup, sauces and cakes, so we’ll share the load as we have done for the last few years. I’m very grateful for all the help. And maybe i’ll even stop trying to micro-manage the whole event this year.

A Christmas that could very well have been in hospital is happening at home, and we’re so thankful for that. But as we go into this holiday with already tattered emotions, tired bodies and full and fragile hearts from the last few weeks, it seems more than ever that Christmas is like a tinsel adorned magnifier for all the things we are feeling, joy, excitement, hope, sadness and grief, the lot. And that is ok.

As I rest and drink coffee, I hear our daughter creasing up laughing with a friend in her bedroom, and think to myself, it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Whatever that looks like this year.

Happy Holidays 🎄

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Thank you for reading

Jane 💝

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