Where in the **Bleep** Did December go?

I think I fell in a hole or something. Because the last time I checked, it was the beginning of the month. And now, it is Christmas eve.

Here are the top Christmas Memories I have had in my life:

Christmas 1983: Rota, Spain. Mike (my late husband) and I just moved into a new apartment a few weeks prior. It was our first Christmas together. We didn't have a lot of money, but we were extremely happy. We walked through the streets that night, and found a store that sold radios. We both really wanted to listen to Christmas music. So we made what we called our "First Major Purchase" together and bought a transistor radio. We bought a bottle of Asti Spumante Champagne, and headed back to our new apartment. We had an old fashioned bathtub, large with claw feet. We filled it with water, got naked, and sat together, listening to the scratchy Christmas music on the radio, drinking the Asti right from the bottle (we did not own glasses yet) and passed it back and forth between us. We sang the songs out loud, and got a little drunk. It was the happiest Christmas I ever spent. Bar none. God Bless you, Michael. I loved you very much.

Christmas 1993?: This was the year my grandmother had open heart surgery a week prior to Christmas. Dard and I packed his red truck with our Christmas and we drove 6 hours on Christmas eve day to my grandmother's trailer in Clear Lake. She had just been discharged that day for home. The kids were cranky, Grace threw up on the way, and I was an emotional mess...but when I walked into her bedroom and saw her face and knew she was still alive, I was so happy to be there to celebrate the holiday with her. I have no memory of anything else that day, but seeing her, looking like shit, but still alive was enough for me. God Bless you, Dard, for helping me have that moment. I loved you very much.

Christmas 2007: This was the year I spent the holiday with Dane. After my separation and marital issues, and feeling so lonely and dispairing that anyone would ever love me again, having this time with Dane, his family and later my daughter Jessica was exactly what I needed to realize that life would go on. The snowy, slushy weather was beautiful to me, and Christmas day dinner at the Dim Sum restaurant in Seattle Washington was sufficiently different so that I did not have to think about the past. (And the night before at the Silver Cloud Inn on water in Tacoma was not so bad either....) Waking up Christmas morning, and bathing in the large bathtub with the glass windows all around was a memory for a lifetime. God Bless you, Dane, for being there when I needed you. I loved you very much.

This is my first Christmas since I was 18 and left for the Navy that I do not have any family around me on the holiday. How do I feel about this?

1. I feel relieved: For many years, I had anxiety and stress around Christmas. That horrible feeling that you will never please everyone...especially yourself. And I ended up being tired and cranky a lot. So, this year, I don't have to do that.

2. I feel guilty: There is a little part of me that feels bad that I will not be there to hug on my grandson, or be with my youngest as she celebrates her first adult christmas on her own. Or with my Father, who seems to be slowly declining in his late 60's....but this is a very small emotion...not hardly worth mentioning

3. I feel nostalgic: Christmas is chock full of memories. And songs that make me remember the great times I had...and resurrect the fear that I may never have them again. That the joy and the love that I experienced with my ex-husband and children is over and gone...forever. The song that I can't play right now that keeps running through my head is this one:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on...

4. I feel nothing. I do not feel particularly Christmassy. Seriously. I really don't care much about this holiday. I sent gifts to my kids because I know that they still have the spirit, but I feel pretty blase about the whole thing. And that is okay.

I think that is pretty much my whole emotional inventory.