Got a...

EIRD DISCONNECTED FEELING,,,

I never feel really good this time of year.  Christmas is often depressing for me.  I used to have to work so hard at my shop to help families get their home ready for the holiday and then we have a Candlelight tour of homes, and that was a lot of work to prepare for with all the well off ladies showing their homes I had a lot of work with a def timetable, the tour was always the second week of December...I had to turn some people away because I knew I couldn't do it all so that left me feeling disappointed, and the whole thing was a huge crush...like an Upholstery marathon...and this was over and over for 28 yrs.  Then on top of it I had my own family Christmas to manage.

When I was a kid we rarely had Christmas, there was no money for that especially after my dad passed away, I was 13 for some reason I always thought I was 11...but anyways after that my Mom struggled to keep a roof over our head.  We never had a turkey or a Christmas dinner... We rarely had heat and  even tho we were a tight knit group in that we survived we were never  "emotionally close"  It's like we each had our own struggle to endure.  There was enough years between us kids to keep us at different levels of maturity and in different schools...When I was in Elementary my older sis was there only one yr then she moved to middle school...then when my younger sis started I moved to Middle school and then my older sis was in High school...by the time my younger sis got to High School I got out a yr early by going to summer school, so we were at the same high school for only one term.  

Many times I only recall the struggles we had at Holiday time..so it's never a  warm and fuzzy thing for me. I had always wanted to go to a warm island for Christmas, if I couldn't spend it in a snow covered landscape with horse drawn sleighs all over town, and carolers singing outside,  without those things is it really Christmas.  We did have a few traditions that came after my son was born, we cut our tree from the woods, we always had lots of gifts under it and Mom and I cooked lots of foods...,my son and I made Christmas cookies, and I always took the week off between Christmas and New Yrs.   January was always a slow month in the shop and so I always had to make sure I held onto some December money to make my budget for January....

I think it's the missing family members now that leave me feeling empty this time of year...I hope one day to go to a warm island and just forget it's Christmas. 🎄