Happy Holidays!

The holidays always find a way to sneak up on me.  No matter how prepared I think I am, I always find myself a holiday hot mess!  I scramble to get cards, gifts, and other holiday greetings out on time.  It is unenviable that I will unintentionally forget something, or someone along the way.  I need to start planning for the next year as soon as this years holidays have passed.

My health issues never fail to provide many kinks in my holiday plans.  Take this year for example.  Having surgery the week before Christmas, for lack of a better word, sucks!  Jeff and I haven't even been able to put up a Christmas tree, or decorations.  Luckily, modern technology has allowed me to record all of the lovely holiday programming to watch at a later time.  If not for that our home would be Scrooge-worthy in appearance.  The only hint of the holiday spirit has been released through christmas cookie, and apple cider scented candles.  There is never a shortage of candles at the Kleinman household.  It has recently struck me that the holiday season will be over before I have truly gotten into the holiday spirit.

Fortunately, I get to experience an abundance of holiday cheer at the hospital.  The children, and the families I visit at the cancer center never let their ailments turn them into holiday grinches.  They do whatever they can to make the hospital as festive as possible.  Families bring in platters of holiday treats, play Christmas music all season long, and reinvent their traditions for the hospital setting.  It is a joy, and my absolute pleasure to take part in as many holiday activities as my body allows.

Taking part in new holiday events is honestly wonderful, but there is a large part of me that yearns for all of the holiday traditions of my childhood.  Every December I wish I could go back in time to small town Wisconsin, waking up at home with my parents, and my sister on Christmas morning.  Feeling that carefree exhilaration that only Santa, and Christmas spirit can instill.  Waking up at three in the morning is never easier than on December 25th.  Now-a-days the first bout of nausea and vomiting starts my Christmas morning.  Let me tell you, that is definitely not the same feeling of exhilaration you get when your a child waking up for Christmas.  The feeling is more that of, I deserve a gift after dealing with this shit all night...Merry Freakin' Christmas, my ass!  You can take back every present I received if I could have just 24 puke-free hours!

I know I sound extremely bitter, angry, and like a holiday buzz-kill, but really, I'm not.  I enjoy the holidays, and I am grateful to be alive to celebrate them.  Seeing houses covered in Christmas lights, purging on holiday goodies, giving & receiving gifts, and experiencing the cheerfulness the holidays bring is heartwarming.  I truly love it.  I just wish "life" didn't have to get in the way of holiday happiness.  I wish I could experience it once again, as I did, when I was a child.  I can only hope that I give the children at the hospital a sense of that magical holiday spirit, and one day when I have a child I can enrich their life with the holiday traditions I hold so dear.  

Have a safe and happy holiday!