Christmas with an angel and four surviving siblings

Wishing everyone peace, hope, joy, and love from our house to yours. Christmas 2009 was a happy time for our children, but bittersweet for this bereaved mother. In everything that we've done as a family, I'm so aware that one of us is missing. But we remembered him and my sister and her family remembered George and my father and his wife gifted our children with $100 to spend on Lego as an extra special present in memory of their baby brother.

It's been a green and sunny (instead of rainy West Coast weather) Christmas:




The school Christmas concert, "Shepherds, Sheep, and a Saviour" was a musical treat that we enjoyed for the afternoon and evening performances. Memorable moments include not only my grade four boy who was so chuffed at getting a cast role (not just a part as his grade's song number) as a sheep, but the poor head shepherd boy who threw up during the stinky sheep song, bless his heart, and the jazzy song with the disco ball and lights. I have to say that a nativity that features a disco ball and sunglass wearing sheep and shepherds brings a lot of joy to everyone in the cast and the audience alike:



We walked Albert dog to see a nearby full-size Nativity set on Christmas Eve day as we waited for my husband to finish work and come home to join all of us:



Christmas Eve we went to the 7 p.m. Mass and our oldest boy was an altar server for the second time. The children enjoyed the homily where all the little ones got to go up front and decorate the trees with meaningful ornaments, our five-year-old standing out because he wore his favourite Batman cape over his little dress shirt and pants. Then it was home to bed and they were all exhausted. They were asleep in no time and my husband and I got things wrapped and under the tree, St. Nicholas filled the stockings of course, and I gave George's ashes a pat where they sit on the shelf above our well-protected Nativity set. You'll notice that the Holy Family has nothing to fear because Spiderman is protecting them all from Herod:



Christmas day saw us up at 8 a.m. for stockings, then breakfast and Lego building, then opening the rest of the presents:



Several times the children mentioned their baby brother, happily wishing he was with us for the merriment and fun. I made our turkey and all the trimmings and had a few moments of tears on my own while the children played games with their Daddy in the rec room downstairs. The afternoon and evening saw us all relaxed, as evidenced by the furry member of our household:



So while I was the crazy lady imagining dancing by the Christmas tree with a seven-month-old babe in my arms, I was happy and thankful for the rest of the blessings in my life, including the reason for all the happiness and feasting here the last few days: