It is early Sunday morning....the ground is covered with a little snow.....and my Green tea with lemon and stevia is tasting especially soothing.

Yesterday was another very busy day...went to two Christmas Concerts. I was the greeter for one of them which I thoroughly enjoyed! Even though the crisp winter breeze would hit me each time the door was opened or I opened it for the guests arriving. So, I came home with a congested chest. I seem to be fine this morning though. The concert was fantastic and I love the Christmas music!

I want to write today about Christmas and the loss of a loved one. That can also be a divoce, break up with a true-love boyfriend....or whatever or whoever was near and dear to your heart. I know these emotions myself.....

I lost my late husband, a few years ago, 6 weeks before the Holidays would begin. So, I went through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year without the man of my dreams. Even though, it has been years now, the pain is not as great, and I have since re-married a wonderful man, however, the holidays still hold a little emptiness and probably always will, because I can no longer share with him the christmas traditions we had together. I have come to realize that the death of a loved one is just something you have to live with and go on with life the best you can. So, I want to reach out to those, and it could be all of us, that feels grieve along with the new-life of happiness we have made for ourselves.

"Most people assume that Christmas is hardest for children who've stopped believing in Santa Claus. But I think the holidays are the most difficult for those who have experienced a recent loss, through death or divorce, particularly if this is the first or second holiday after their world has been torn asunder."

"Many single mothers often feel uncomfortable at Christmas and unconsciously convey this discomfort to their children. One way this is done is by putting off holiday preparations until the very last moment, then throwing everything together in a halfhearted frenzy. Perhaps one of the reasons single women and single mothers experience difficulty during Christmastime is because, deep in their hearts, they think holiday traditions belong only to perfect Norman Rockwell families. The first time a woman newly on her own opens the ornament box alone (if she even bothers to pull it out), she experiences such a sense of loss she may decide not to continue the holiday rituals she once treasured because the comparison of Christmas Past with Christmas Present is too painful."

"What's the point?" she says,
The point is that we all need the reassuring and healing messages that treasured rituals provide. "One of the most important aspects about family traditions--rituals that families continue to do year after year---is that traditions have symbols and families need symbols. "Dr. Steven J. Wolin, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical School, explains: "You bring out the old glass, you sing the old songs, you say the same prayer, you wear a certain outfit, you set the table in a certain way." These are the unconscious moments of family rituals that become emotional security blankets to be tugged on in times of stress."

"Cherished customs are just as important for grown women as they are for children........Rituals bring comfort and joy.Our souls can never out-grow the yearning for luminous and lininal moments of Wholeness."

"So unpack those beloved holiday traditions. Create new ones that express your authenticity, just as you create a new lifestyle. "Traditions are the guidposts driven deep into our subconsious minds," Ellen Goodman tells us. "The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of." Sarah Ban Breathnach

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor."
Henry David Thoreau