These lambs are Flip Flops--extremely relaxed animals--who were extremely relaxing to our mother during her last days.

Without our mother, we are trying to figure out our new Christmas normal.  My mother loved Christmas almost as much as she loved Christ or us rotten kids.  In our latter years, Christmas somehow came to revolve around her.  If someone teased my mother about opting to do nothing for Christmas, to not buy gifts, to not prepare a special dinner or, in essence, to treat Christmas as if it were an ordinary day, she would get a blank look on her face and become as quiet as a patient hearing bad news.

Then the moment like a flashback would pass, and all of a sudden she would object.  With her whole heart.

“No Christmas!” she would say.  “How can we NOT have Christmas!  We HAVE to have Christmas!”

My mother shopped for everyone . . . down to the fifth cousins who barely had a speck of original DNA in ’em (or the home-training to mumble a polite, Thank you.) 

She shopped until late.  Until pooped.  My mother loved Christmas.  The family.  The friends.  The holiday cards.  The “Gee wiz, it’s snowing” Christmas song.  The crowds.  The sounds.  The tinkle of the Salvation Army bell.  The eggnog.  Mistletoe.  The red poinsettias (that lived with us till Spring, till they grew bugs).  And especially lil dude in the center of it all, Baby Jesus.

“But her passion for Christmas cooled when it came to wrapping all of those sweaters and shirts and watches and tiny boxes of earrings handpicked and purchased with love.”

In addition to erecting and decorating the tree, wrapping my mother’s hundred extra gifts fell into my lap like an endless string of tangled Christmas lights while old girl dashed off to stir up dressing and tiny Cornish hens.

...crates and crates of ruby red apples...

I thought I could never imagine a more wholesome aroma than the smell of Dad’s boxes of fresh oranges and apples and pine from the Christmas tree.

As I wrapped gifts, the smell of green peppers and red peppers and everything delicious saturated the whole house.  Early memories of the days when my father would come home with crates and crates of shiny red apples the color of Dorothy’s shoes and oranges the size of softballs from nearby farms, mother’s cooking nearly erased.

Wrapping my mother’s hundred extra gifts taught me patience.  My favorite wrapping paper was the super shiny kind that reflected light from the tree and lamps.  I had a flair for design.  Stacking the presents just so around the tree—so that no bow was crushed, so that the big rectangles on bottom became shelves to display the smaller squares on top—thrilled me.

My mother’s mother died when my mother was a toddler, Christmas was special to her because gifts were far from plenteous.  Once we, her children, became adults, when Christmas jingled around, we attempted to give our mother as many (meaningful) gifts as possible; we hoped lots of presents would make up for her never knowing her mother and for never getting the chance to know how warm and wonderful a mother’s love could be—a gift she, our mother, gave to us each day without complaint and despite sometimes functioning on bare-cupboard empty.

“When my mother opened a gift, it was something to see.”

Her arms would rise inch by slow inch, holding the shoulders or edges of the gift, and her mouth would drop open.  Then she would look around the room as if to say, “Is it real?  Does everyone see what I see?”  Then, gasping in awe, she would say, “Oh, this is sooo pretty, (insert child’s name here).”  The Christmas lights would be twinkling in her eyes.  And she would have the same sweet demeanor and sugary expression by the teaspoon or tablespoon for each successive gift.

My mother was a humble woman.  After her mother died, her siblings were divided and spread out like playing cards to lessen the burden of poverty.  I suspect that because she had learned to never expect anything, each gift given to her—no matter the time of year—was received with a level of gratitude at its purest.  A graciousness that filled you with air.  Like a butterfly dreamt up by author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, growing enormous wings.  Mother’s gratitude made you glisten like an 18 kt-gold unicorn.  She made you feel as though you were extraordinary for thinking of her, while somehow wrapping you in a warm brown blanket with just her eyes.

The past ten years, a Merry Christmas was for other people.

This Christmas, when my sister is sitting on the floor in our living room—just like our mother used to—surrounded by piles of pretty paper with snowmen and Santas ripped from their carrot noses and toy bags and chimneys, I will watch and wait.  I will fasten my eyes to my sister (whom everyone says is the mirror image of our mother), and I will wait to catch a glimpse of our mother’s smile in her smile while my soul prays to God that it will be enough.

In loving memory of mom and hope that this Christmas is your merriest!

*** 

But even if it isn’t, here is a song to uplift you:

“Trust In Me Now”
By Anthony Evans

I know you’re past/The point of breaking into pieces/I know you feel/
Like there’s no reason even worth this/And when you cry/
The tears that fall don’t even touch your pain, no, no

Even though you feel alone/Even though your strength is gone/
As your weary heart just tries to hold on/Even if your faith is lost/
Even if it’s hard to trust/In a Lord that would let the rain fall down/
Trust in me now/Trust in me now

I can hear every prayer that goes unspoken/
I feel the weight of everything that’s on your shoulders/So don’t give up
There is nothing we can’t overcome/There’s nothing we can’t overcome

Even though you feel alone/Even though your strength is gone/
As your weary heart just tries to hold on/Even if your faith is lost/
Even if it’s hard to trust/In a Lord that would let the rain fall down/
Trust in me now/Trust in me now

I can see what you can’t see/And I will hold you close to me/
Through the storm till you can see the light

Even though you feel alone/Even though your strength is gone/
As your weary heart just tries to hold on/Even if your faith is lost/
Even if it’s hard to trust/In a Lord that would let the rain fall down/
Trust in me now/Trust in me now/Trust in me now/Trust in me now