Am I truly ready for the Holidays?

With the Holidays just around the corner, I feel bittersweet about it.  The sweetness I feel is because I love being with my children and watching their enjoyment during the Holidays.  Their delight in the foods I prepare and just the theatrics of Thanksgiving and Christmas makes me smile.  The bitter part for me is there are those family members who are no longer with me and I miss them.  I seem to be missing them more this year.  My father for one and I’ve had fourteen Holiday’s without him and my children never knew him.  My grandmother too, she was the matriarch of our family; the bible wheeling granny.  I miss the arguments, the way she used to tell me how to run my life.  I miss her laugh and her cooking and even though she lectured you, you always knew she loved you.  I just read an article today about missing your relatives around the holidays and what to do to get yourself out of the “Blue Holiday Mood”. 

There are always those who give advice.  Those concerned family members, friends, acquaintances, millions of self-help gurus and articles on “How to Survive the Holidays” but the truth is do we really want it, do we care about it, and will we really follow it.  Answer:  No.  Getting through, just means that.  Getting through.  It’s personal, it’s an individual’s experience which no amount of advice regardless of how much empathy is given along with it, will help.  Only time.  And as I’ve said it’s been several years since I’ve had family members who have moved on.  But it’s the fear that my mother now is older and I’m wondering how many more holiday’s I will have with her.   I truly hate this getting old business.  It scares me and I guess the next biggest thing is I know somewhere down the road I’m next in line.  Geez!

I guess this is not the type of Holiday post that infuses people with that good feeling to spur them into shopping frenzies and I do apologize.  I do have another post that is immersed with wonderful emotions and I will post that at a later date.  This is just something that was one my heart today and I felt the need to write about.  One can’t be chipper every day can they?  Well, maybe, ah I just need to let out one big sigh and move on.   On a brighter note, it is going to a beautiful fall day and the day ahead for me at least is going to very busy.  And last but not least, I think I’m going to call my mother!