The Eve of the Eve

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve….tomorrow we will be driving around to do that whole ‘family’ thing.      Those ‘things’ you do for Christmas.

Christmas Day will be an orgy of over hyped kids opening too many gifts.  You know how it works.

I suppose I am really lucky to have family to drive around to see.   I have lots of family really.    People scattered all over.  Lots of people that we don’t see over the holidays.   But lots of people that we think about.

And think about us.

My kids have had a blast this year due to all the PACKAGES that have arrived in the mail.  There really is nothing like mysterious packages being delivered to your door.

And who has delivered these packages?  Well one arrived filled with mysterious wrapped gifts for all the kids from a fairly distant cousin.   She (I think) is the cousin of my Grandfather.   She is a lovely woman who I have only met once, but send cards and so on.  She lives on the Island and is in her 80’s.

She has knit beautiful blankets for the kids too.

She have never met the kids.

Yet she does this every year now.

My uncle also sent the kids stuff this year too!

The craziest was a long lost cousin that my mom found through her genealogical searches.  She lives in Ontario!   How awesome is that!?

I love the  idea that through these packages my kids know that there is a world out there where people care for them.   That no matter what happens to me or their dad, there are people out there who care.

I think that is really important.

I think that feeling has kept me going through the years.

And not just from family.

So many people who are not related to me have been kind and helpful to me on many many levels over the years.   The kindness that has been shown to me in all the various forms humbles me.   But it also encloses me in a warm and loving embrace of togetherness.  It protects me from the bad.   Holds me to this place.

Holds me to this existence.

When things were bad for mom and me…it was friends, not family who took us in.  Gave us a warm and safe place to stay.

When we faced our first Christmas with little funds for gifts…it was friends who made sure there was a pile of gifts under the tree for me.

Friends rushed to comfort me when I lost my baby.

Friends have rushed to share our joy when Tara was born.  And to help with all the stuff that babies need.

Friends showing us as much love as family can do.

Christmas memories for me are filled with not just the fun and magic of opening gifts and the thrill that ‘Santa had been’..but I also remember feeling anxious sitting in  other families homes, of not feeling part of THOSE families despite the blood that connected us together….of feeling strange and apart.   And just wanting to be home.

I also have memories of spending Christmas with friends and how much fun that was.    How sharing in someone else’s family seemed warm and inviting…yet distant enough to walk away from it all without any baggage attached.

The experiences I have had in my life have taught me that blood is NOT thicker than water.

That love and caring can come from all around us.

That sometimes friendship is more important than family.    That family is what you MAKE of the love around you….no matter where it comes from.

Now that I have my only little family….I have been more than happy to spend Christmas building a cocoon of love and comfort around them.

Christmases have been small….we hunker down.   We feel the presence of those family members no long with us.   We hang on to the one’s we hold dear.

But we also open our hearts and minds and arms to all those other people that make us feel loved.  To all the friends out there.

And I want my kids to understand that…to never feel that our family is just it.  That there is love everywhere for them.

That Christmases can be spent in any shape or form…as long as they are spent with people who care for you as much as you care for them.

So all of you…..a Merry Christmas