The most oft asked question

about my Christmas was "How was it without Gunga?". It was precious to me how nearly everyone who even remotely knows me was thoughtful enough to ask, realizing this was a really hard Christmas for us.

It is a hard question to answer. Do you miss someone any more on a certain day when every day you feel the ache of their absence? Not exactly, but some days are just harder than others. Or just emptier, maybe.

Still, it was special to spend Christmas with two of my three sisters...

It was just so different.

There were some sweet new memories made like Christmas Eve brunch with dear friends...

Is it bragging to say I think I have the best egg casserole in the western world? I don't think so because all I do is follow a recipe found in this beautiful cookbook (but I make it with bacon instead of ham because bacon makes me happy).

After a Christmas Eve service at our church, I got to host my first family Christmas gathering in my home...

We played a game of charades where you come up with something to act out that has to do with Christmas. Here Jack is trying to get people to guess his choice, "Chuck Norris"...

Not sure how his choice fits with Christmas, but it definitely fits with Jack.

Then it was over the river and through the woods, not to Gunga's but to Aunt Ayay's house we went. Until 10pm on Christmas Eve night we had been traveling the hour back and forth between us quite and bit and that was a reminder of how different it is with Gunga gone. Even though we only live an hour away, we would go to Gunga's house and camp out for an entire week around Christmas. When we were all finally together in under one roof for a couple of days, it finally felt like Christmas.

When we first arrived at my sister's, one of my favorite moments ever happened when I snapped this photo...

Lulu just saw her self in the full length mirror, gasped a bit and said excitedly "Hi Lulu!" Seeing you takes my breath away too, baby.

Christmas Eve brought the traditional gift of jammies as well as the tradition of pretending that this was the year we forgot to buy them jammies. The girls got owls...

Tate got Dwight...

And though Jack got super cute sock monkey jammies, he was still found shirtless most of the time...

Shirtless and packin' heat.

One tradition that needs to change is that of my sister's and I staying up until the wee hours of the morn getting ready for Christmas, but alas we will have to wait for another year for that to change. We were up until 4am doing this...

Honestly, I was the one who had the most to do and they were just supporting me. We missed having our "#3" sister with us in our escapades and at about 1:30am I got really sad. Every year, Gunga would stay up with us as long as she possible could. Not because she needed to do anything. She had usually been ready for weeks. But because she wanted to be with her girls and she didn't want to miss out on the fun. I can still see her in her robe saying "Oh girls..."

as she laughed at something we would say or do in our late night stupor. Maybe I sound like a broken record in how often I say that I miss her. But if you knew my Mommy, you would know that she was so lovable which makes her now so "missable".

Morning came quickly as cousins gathered to "storm the stockings"...

So glad to have Grandma with us too...

One of the biggest hits were Singamajigs...

(they weren't the toy of the year for nothin'!)

Though no gift could compare to the giant lollipop from cousin Sarah...

This is how Lulu felt about it...

And how Sarah felt about the shirt we gave her...

Lulu is definitely the best medicine for grieving hearts and we were well-medicated, believe me...

It's just not possible to overdose on this...

The big hits for Jackie were anything having to do with football...

which was just about everything he received.

If Jack was all football, Tate was all "The Office"...

And I was all "I don't want to be really into what gifts I will get, but I can't help it". My sisters gave me thoughtful and/or sentimental gifts and this guy "love languaged" me good...

I opened a homemade card that said "Mary Christmas". It had a picture of Mary Poppins and said it was good for two tickets to the Broadway show coming to town. I SO wish I could find it to post a picture of it because I am so proud of my gifting Boy Wonder. I didn't love him any less when he gave me Plus size socks as a gift many years ago, but I definitely liked this gift better. (In his defense, I had asked for socks. He gave them to me among other gifts. And he didn't see the "plus size" on it. Bless his sweet little heart for trying.)

This year, he not only tried, he succeeded. He also gave me a charm he picked out for my Pandora bracelet in honor of my Mommy. An elephant for my Proud to be a Republican mother. It made me cry. A good cry. Gifts or no gifts, I am so glad that I can walk through the ups and downs of this life with you at my side, babe.

Both of us cried when Bill opened a mysterious gift under the tree from my sisters. It was my mother's pedestal cake stand. Amy bought it for Gunga, but said she didn't need it so she gave it to Carrie. But when Carrie heard that Bill had asked about it because of how Gunga used to have a cake waiting for her sons-in-law when they would visit, she wrapped it up and they gave it to him for Christmas. He was fighting back tears the rest of the night. I guess their gift was a little more meaningful than the shop vac I got him.

Speaking of cake, we had new traditions like making cake balls (since that is such an unfortunate name, we like to call them "little bites of heaven")...

And very old traditions, like Jesus' birthday cake...

Though it was hard not to hear Gunga's beautiful voice sing Happy Birthday to Jesus this year, I imagine she was having more fun singing it than ever before.

So, the answer to the question "How was Christmas without Gunga?". It was different. It was hard. But we were with people we love...

And it was still Jesus' birthday. So it was still merry...

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts

by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Romans 5:5