Christmas without Parents

I was on facebook today and read a note that one of my friends from high school wrote. She lost her parents several years ago in a bank robbery. She was saying in her note how this was such a hard time for her because everyone talks about going to be with their family and although she is close with her brother and sister and she has great in-laws, she still misses her mom and dad. She talks about having a Santa collection because her dad had one and baking the bread that her mom used to bake.

I am so lucky to still have my dad, but I do find myself thinking of my mom a lot during this time of year, she was such a child around Christmas time! She loved everything about Christmas. She loved having everyone she loved near her and packed as many people in our house as she could. She loved decorating the house, as my sister put it, it looked as if Santa's shop exploded in our house, every room, including the bathrooms was decorated. She loved the Christmas lights, we would ride around every year and look at lights. Every Christmas Eve she read The Night Before Christmas and dad followed it with the True Christmas story from the Bible. I find myself doing a lot of the same things, my way of keeping her alive and passing her on to my children. She was so much the Spirit of Christmas, you felt the love of Jesus when you were in the room with her, I miss her dearly.