Holiday Schmoliday

The entire holiday season has me so ready for January 2nd.  This November marked the one year anniversary of a very traumatic event in my life that almost killed me.  I'm still trying to move past that and November represents a lot of grief, guilt, shame and trauma for me.  Last year's Thanksgiving I had a lot to be grateful for but I was pretty bummed and confused and didn't feel like going through the motions of celebrating a holiday.  I didn't care to so much this year either.  Thanksgiving takes three days to prepare just for everyone to be done eating in 20 minutes.  Afterward, my body is in shambles.  

Christmas means putting more stress on my body to put up the tree and decorations.  Then, trying to give the kids a decent Christmas morning with only one parent working and a measly check from Social Security every month that gets eaten up by bills stresses both me and my husband out.  We do what we can, and I know that there are families out there who can't do anything at all.  At the end of the day, we just want to make those who matter most to us happy and put smiles on the faces of our children.  I know I can't give them everything they want but try to make up for it by creating special moments and memories that they will hold on to forever.  Sometimes, due to a migraine or a flare up from the fibromyalgia, my ability to do those things are limited or halted all together.  I just don't know how I'm going to feel from one day to the next and that creates a lot of anxiety and stress for me.  So I wind up wishing for the holidays to be over so that I won't have to worry about whether or not I'll be able to enjoy them with my family or not.  I got through last month and the Christmas tree and decorations are up.  I had to spend most of yesterday in bed due to the pain my body was in from all the bending, stooping and reaching but the results were happy kids.  That's what it's all about anyway, right?