Christmas 2023: An Honest Review

Well, here we are. Our first Christmas without Hyrum. A time-intensive gift kept me busy enough not to think about it for the first two weeks of December, but I sure do feel it now. I’m usually so joyful, grateful, jazzed for the activities we do at Christmas time. We’ve still done all the Christmas things, but day by day that heavy feeling grew inside of me… “I just don’t want a Christmas if my Hyrum isn’t here.” Why bother with gifts if what I want is just… my son?

And all the season’s magic, all the parties and the lights are trying hard to trick me. I’m the only sad one, right? All my other friends are happy, frosting cookies, hanging colored lights… I know that isn’t really true. But it’s taken a good cry and some solid journaling and a good scripture study to give me back perspective, and the courage to just let this Christmas holiday be sad.

Two years ago, the kids and I made a million gingerbread cookies and delivered them with songs and notes at a rest home. We walked there on a sunny December day. This year, instead of making those cookies with Hyrum, I made them FOR him, and we delivered them to Hyrum’s radiation team. They always tried so hard for him. They gave him countless presents, and when he finished his treatment they decorated the whole lobby, gave him a big group gift, and invited a live Spidey guest to congratulate him. I still cry when I think about it. Those cookies that we shared today, they really lifted me. It felt good, instead of aching for the joy I wish I felt, to just be grateful for the goodness we have found within the sad. There is so much of it. There are thoughtful messages from friends, who still carry our grief. Tonight a Secret Santa came, cuz I just really needed to be seen, and known, and loved. Those gifts were really saying: “We know this year is different. It’s okay to feel that way. Just let yourself be lifted.”

Here is one more snapshot into the feels of the season. Though I’ve lost those soft, warm fuzzies that once came at Christmas time, I’ve felt instead an urgent need for Jesus to be born. And I feel a little alone in that? Besides Michael, of course, who feels this probably even more than I do. Like, church can seem so routine and it’s so hard to talk about anything vulnerable or deep in a hallway conversation…. And again, I get tricked into thinking that no one else needs church like I do. I REALLY need to be there. I need my bond with God.

I NEED that little Savior, that kind Healer, Christ Divine.
I held him through my crucible
and still, right now, I seek him
with each hurt or hope of mine.

Is it I alone who needs Him?

I am lonely, weary, worn,
and watching close for stars that lead

to where the babe is born.
I know the age old story,

that time-worn nativity.
This year, please tell me tales
of “Christ in 2023”.
What silent ache compelled you
to seek solace in His light?
And did He really heal you?
Did He make your burden light?
Or if you’re still out seeking
tell me why you even try?
When faith is so unpopular,
why stay and live this life?
If I am just one shepherd,
who will sing His birth to me?
Or if I play the wise man
who will join to make it three?
I want a live nativity.
I need you at my side.
Please tell me you, too, need Him.

Do you?
How?
And when?
And why?