Christmas

mini tree
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

I haven't celebrated Christmas in a long while it seems but old traditions keep coming back. I don't have a lot of happy family memories to fall back on but the ones i do have are Christmas...like when we got a tree a few days before Christmas but kept it up until Easter and actually hid easter eggs in it. Okay, so those aren't the warm and fuzzy ones. My mom loved Christmas, i say loved because now that she's sick and lives in Mexico a good portion of the year, Christmas isn't the same to her. Before she was sick she would decorate her entire house. Not a single thing was left undecorated. 8 years ago or something she gave me some of her Christmas ornaments and I never used them because i never had a tree...i always figured i'd do that with my own family but not as a single.

these one's didn't make the tree this year - glass
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

Then I converted to Islam... Anyway long story short I feel like a chunk of me is missing these last years and this year it got me. I want to share some of my family traditions with my son so after going back and forth on the issue with my husband we decided not to get a tree not that either of us are opposed to Christmas - just don't want to send mixed signals to LD and I also didn't want him getting caught up in a holiday that is really about marketing...even the advent of Christmas - the church sold the holiday to the masses by saying "we can celebrate this pagan holiday (solstice) but let's celebrate it as the birth of Christ even though he was born in the Spring". Okay, so we didn't want that.

But then i was walking through rite aid and the trees were on sale and just that morning i saw my mom's decoration box sitting here and i felt sad. I love my mom, i'm losing my mom, and i never spent a christmas with her. I bought a tree and some lights for it for i think $7 which included raisinettes, little dude's candy of choice. I couldn't pass it up and came home, pulled my mom's decorations, many which are handmade,

mom's crocheted ice skates
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

and decorated the little tree with my son and felt happy. I will teach him about Christmas and tell him the truth about everything and why we celebrate Christmas - just a little bit. I will tell him that Christmas to me is warm memories of my family, of my loving to make things and decorate things... I decorate our table for each season. Right now there are walnuts, a candle and a branch with berries on it. What are those called? The smell of baking is all around, a table of cookies, breads, candy and treats for my family. I will teach him about Jesus in the Muslim tradition and why as Muslims we don't celebrate Christmas the same way the Christians do.