It's a hard month for me. Which makes me kind of angry. I love the Christmas season. For further proof, you could look at my wedding pictures. We married the week before Christmas so that we could have a Christmas themed wedding. We went skiing on our honeymoon. I love snow. Hot chocolate. Cuddling by the fire. Giving gifts and watching faces light. Christmas lights on dark winter nights. The fact that I can see my breath. Laughter in snow ball fights. The way my Husband proposed to me in the snow.

But, three years ago, this was a very, very long December.

On this first day of the month in 2003, I knew that the end was nearing. The Munchkin wasn't due until Christmas Eve but I had been on medication since around twenty-some-odd weeks to keep the contractions at bay and the Munchkin where she needed to be in order to stay safe: inside my womb.

My parents didn't hang Christmas lights that year. I don't think any of us felt particularly joyous. What was normally an easy time of year was heavy with the unknown to come and the understanding of a never-ending loss just around the bend.

I sang her Christmas carols. I told her stories of my favorite Christmases past. I told her about the one year when we moved my brother out of his bed, built him an awesome set of bunk beds and moved him back in before he woke up to have him thank that Santa brought him a new bed. (Obviously, we put him on the bottom bunk.) I told her about the parties, the sled riding down the big hill on The Farm, the decorations.

She was born on the thirteenth, my parents' anniversary. I'll talk more about that in the near future. Actually, I'll be heading out for her birthday again this year so I'm sure we'll work in some good past stories and new stories as we go.

Decembers have become easier but always shadowed by those thirteen days when she was with me. I don't get to watch her open presents on Christmas. She doesn't sing Silent Night with me in the candlelit sanctuary of our church. But, forever, I spent thirteen days with her in December as her one and only Mother and no one can take that from me.

It's bittersweet. The memories mix with tears. But I move forward. There are memories left to make. Hopefully more sweet.