Choosing to Cut Christmas Cards in 2024

Our family sends out a holiday card every year to about 100 households; chances are if you are reading this on social media, you are one of the lucky recipients of our printed holiday joy. We always do a photo card and the image is either of all 4 of our family members (sometimes including pets) or just of our 2 sons. Typically I choose a photo that was taken sometime during the calendar year that reflects something significant that happened within our family, or sometimes I set up a holiday "photoshoot" at our house, complete with our Christmas tree as a prop, Santa hats as part of our "costumes", and my cell phone as the camera.

I take a lot of pride in our holiday cards each year and even though it's a lot of work, I also take a lot of pleasure in sending them out to our extensive mailing list. Our holiday cards are a chance to humble brag about our family while also spreading Christmas cheer to those we love.

But this year I decided to skip the whole card thing. In early November when I started searching in my phone's photo albums for an image to use, I was suddenly overcome with a wave of sadness. This year had some high points for sure (I started a new job that I love, my youngest son began high school, my oldest son got his driver's license, just to name a few), but when I think of 2024, the only thing I can think of this holiday season is how we lost my dad. As much as I don't want this terribly sad and tragic experience to trump everything else, it does. Between that and the presidential election results, I just don't feel like I want to celebrate the end of this year with a colorful card and warm holiday greetings.

One could argue that doing the cards even though I felt sad about it may have been a good thing because as I mentioned earlier, I typically do enjoy the whole routine of sending out holiday cards each year. Maybe it would have brought me joy or helped me embrace the holiday spirit. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt like if we sent out a photo card of us all smiling, looking joyful and serene, it would be a lie. I also felt like it would be a betrayal to my dad in some way. After someone dies the world expects us to carry on and be happy - and I know that I will do that eventually - but I felt like sending out happy holiday greetings this year would dismiss this great hole that was left in my heart, would dismiss the fact that this amazing person is no longer in the world. I am just not ready to do that. I need this time to be sad and to acknowledge it - to not mask it with hollow holiday sentiments. I do sincerely hope others have a merry holiday season, I just won't be sending those wishes by mail this year.

The card thing is just one example of how hard and complicated the holiday season can be if you are grieving. To all my friends and family who typically receive a card from us each year, this is why you don't have one of our holly jolly creations hanging on your wall or fridge this year. I'm not sorry for skipping cards, so I won't apologize for it, but I don't think anyone is expecting me to. I know everyone gets it, even if they haven't experienced this type of loss yet.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support since my last post about telling the truth about my grief after losing my dad. And thank you to all for your patience as our family navigates this difficult time. The holidays have been harder this year, especially for me. I'll do the card thing again someday when it feels right again. I know my dad would want me to. 💗

Enter Truth, Exit Pain

My dad died this year and it sucks. There's not a single thing you can do in life to prepare you for a loss like that. And there is not a single thing anyone can say or do that can remove the pain of grief from your heart.

I haven't done much writing in this blog in the last couple of years, partly because life got busy and partly because I didn't really have anything new or interesting to share. Now I do. It occurred to me the other day that I don't tell the truth very much. It's not that I lie, I just avoid saying exactly what I feel and what I think. I mostly do this to be polite, but I also think a lot of the time I am trying to make myself very small - indistinguishable. A lot of this is out of fear, I presume. I don't know, I think I will learn more about this in my upcoming therapy sessions.

I am tired of not telling the truth. It takes a lot of energy to hide. I hadn't really noticed just how exhausting it is until I really thought about it. Smiling politely, biting my tongue, swallowing my pride - all the things. 

A funny thing happens when someone you love dies. Not really "funny", but you know what I mean. The funny thing that happens is you start assessing things, especially your own life and how much of it it remains. After my dad died I started repeating the phrase, "what's the point?" in my head over and over again - I started questioning why I was bothering to do anything - work hard, pay bills, clean the house, eat healthy, bite my tongue when someone was rude to me, etc. etc. Basically I am taking stock. My dad should have had another 20 or 30 years of life, he should have been able to enjoy retirement with his beautiful wife and travel to all the warmest most tropical parts of the world, he should have gotten more Christmases with my kids. But instead his life was cut short by an unexpected illness and a surprise reveal of lung cancer, as was uncovered later in his autopsy. He didn't have a moment to take stock because he thought there was time. We always think there is time.

So I am taking stock and one of the things I am realizing in all this is that I am angry and sad most of the time, and I am also tired of holding in all my anger and sadness. I am tired of hiding my real feelings, politely smiling, or pretending like I have it all together. Fact is that I am human. I am a mess. I have feelings. Some days I get by okay but a lot of days I careen repeatedly between anxiety and depression. 

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I'm in therapy. I'd rather not be, but a couple of months after my dad passed away it became abundantly clear that I am incapable of healing through this grief by myself. So I enlisted a professional to unload all of my emotional baggage on, on a weekly basis.

Also, I'd like to start living my life and being happy. And I think the key to that is to stop making myself small and hiding who I really am and what I really think. So this blog is turning into a "truth series" as I work through my grief. I'll post these from time to time as the spirit moves me. No one is required to read them. In fact, I'll bet no one will. The Facebook algorithm seems to be against me and most of my social media posts seem to turn invisible as soon as they are published. But writing, publishing, and posting my truths and feelings will be very cathartic for me. And will give me a much-needed voice again. It's been a minute since I wrote something real and autobiographical. 

Looking forward to spilling my guts.