Let me begin by saying that I love Christmas, especially the time when everything is done and I can sit back and watch my family enjoy each other and their gifts. I enjoy the concerts and programs and especially Christmas Eve mass, once we are in the audience or pews. But the rest of December is exhausting. Getting to the point when the house is ready, the meal is ready, the gifts are ready, and when our hearts and minds are ready is overwhelming.
Early in December my friend Julia, a flight attendant, had a lay-over in Dayton. I had not seen her in a year, so between dropping off two children at choir and making dinner, I picked her up at her hotel near the airport. We drove back to our home, where we sat around our big table, all eight of us, and enjoyed a very kid-friendly dinner of tacos.
When she arrived our house was in the beginning stages of Christmas decorating which means one of our two trees was up and had been decorated by the younger four. The boxes for everything else had been quickly crammed into the front room, the one that is supposed to always be neat in case we have company. We started the process earlier than we had in the two previous years when I had to be pushed into it by my children and even my husband.
I had always loved putting up the tree as a child, as a young adult (even in college), and as a wife and mother. Then, in late December 2007, our third daughter, Julia, was diagnosed with cancer. When one's child is diagnosed with cancer on December 20, Christmas trees and decorations provide the backdrop. Julia sailed through treatment to remission, but when December 2008 rolled around, I was in no hurry to bring out all of the decorations and memories. Around the 10th or so that year Juan and the kids brought up the tree and boxes in their haphazard way and started decorating. Juan took a video of the kids and reminded a crabby me to be more pleasant because he was recording. I think it was mid-January before I got everything undecorated and back in storage.
I honestly don't remember much of last year's decorating, but I can tell you that I was not fired up about it, not only for the memories it evoked but also because of my toddler who touched everything.
Back to my friend Julia... Before my friend and I left to return her to her hotel, she took pictures with kids by the Christmas tree, which reminded me of her grandmother, also named Julia.
Once when Julia and I, then teenagers, were at her grandmother's house, Grandma Zoghby said, "Joo-ya, won't don't you and a couple of your friends come over and decorate my damn Christmas tree. I'll have Uncle Robert get it out of the attic." Then she promised to make us a Lebanese dinner. So for that Christmas and the next, Julia, our friend Rachael, and I decorated Grandma Zoghby's Christmas tree with elves and balls and other decorations from the 50's and 60's, and enjoyed her kibbeh, stuffed grape leaves, meat pies, and the best sweet tea ever brewed.
Grandpa Zoghby had been ill for several years and passed away in 1989. I understand now that decorating for the holidays may have been as painful for Grandma Zoghby as it has been for me. However she felt about it, I have fond memories of decorating her "damn Christmas tree," laughing with my friends, and enjoying her cooking.
This Christmas is quickly approaching, and the decorations are in place, but so are the ladders and other paraphernalia my husband used to paint the foyer. Ah, well! We are now three years beyond Julia's diagnosis and thinking less and less about it. We will probaly remember this Christmas as the year mom had tape on her forehead. (See previous post.)
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