Christmas again

Chris picked a great Christmas tree this year.

Well, he always picks a great tree, but this year it seems especially nice. We've gotten to the point where we have enough "special" ornaments - those that we've given each other over the last 11 years, family ornaments, and those we've received as gifts - that we don't need to add an "fillers" (you know, the plain round ones.) The tree looks beautiful. Smells great. Every time I look at the tree I love seeing the fat glass reindeer, the pickle ornament, the cheer leading moose, our various lobster ornaments (yes, we have quite a few), the felt Pinocchio characters that Chris' Gram made by hand a million years ago, the ornament that Parker made in kindergarten, and, of course, our tree wouldn't be complete without the many light-up, noise making Star Trek ornaments collected by my goofy husband.

It really is a beautiful tree.

It's Christmas again.

And yet I seem to be missing my holiday cheer.

Partly because I caught whatever horrendous cold bug/plague that was flying around the office (and very kindly passed along to Chris. I'm such an awesome wife...) and I'm feeling physically pretty lousy. But mostly because I thought that we'd have a Little One here in the house with us for this Christmas season.

Last Christmas as we were decorating the tree, I remember us saying things like, "Just think, next year the baby will be here and it'll be our first Christmas together." And I remember thinking things like, "Will she even be awake when we decorate the tree?" or "I know she's not going to remember her first Christmas as an infant, but it's going to be so much fun for us to have her here going through her first Christmas."

But here we are a year later and...

Well, here we are.

I had kind of a "moment" during Thanksgiving where I had to leave the table or risk crying in front of the whole family. Watching my brother-in-law and sister-in-law with our beautiful little nieces was really hard this year. Selfishly, instead of being thankful for our family, our health, our home, our jobs and all of the really wonderful things in our lives, I kept thinking about the fact that another Thanksgiving was rolling by with Chris and I no closer to parenthood than when we started all of this almost two years ago.

And now here we are at Christmas time again and I'm feeling a little blue.

Stupid feeling this way? Yes.

Selfish feeling this way? Yes.

But here I am trying to just move forward. Trying to remind myself that we'll become parents when we become parents and that I need to live in the present moment.

Right now.

And reminding myself to not spend so much time fretting about what is or what isn't or what hasn't happened or when it's going to happen.

Be in this moment.

Right now.

And in this present moment it's Christmas.

So, I'm off to do some last minute shopping, clean the house a bit, and try to find myself some holiday cheer. Because I really am an incredibly lucky person with an amazing husband, wonderful family, terrific friends, a nice if somewhat messy home, and a cat who we love to distraction even if she is a pain in the patootie sometimes.

Life is really good.

Merry Christmas.