Life Goes On

I knew this Christmas would be and feel a lot differently than years past, and I wasn't wrong.  That's not to say my Christmas sucked; far from it, in fact.  It was just....different.

Christmas Eve was fairly typical, centered around my brother-in-law's family party.  We eat, we drink, we laugh, we chat, and we exchange a few gifts.  Since we're all sports fans to some degree, we made sure to find some sporting event on TV and left that on in the background.  There was no feeling really that anything had changed at all.

Today was quite different.  My dad wasn't around for us to open gifts this morning, and he had asked me to deliver all the gifts he had bought for everyone.  He said he was on call to go to work this morning, but I can't help but wonder if he was using that as cover to avoid being around my mom.  Anything's possible I suppose, but this was my niece's first Christmas.  I would've thought that would be the kind of event he wouldn't ever miss for the world.  Suffice to say, his absence was very noticeable.

The upside was that, like I said, it was my niece's first Christmas.  I've always looked forward to exchanging presents with my family every Christmas, but buying presents for a niece added a whole new dimension to the holiday.  Christmas shopping for her was more fun than words could possibly express, and it's the kind of joy that I look forward to for her birthdays and future Christmases to come.  I normally already have fun with holiday shopping as it is, but there's nothing quite like watching her open her presents and seeing her play with her new toys for the first time (okay, so my sister opened all her presents for her, but you get the point).

The point is, despite the tough times going on in my family, life still goes on.  We didn't have a Christmas dinner like we always had in the past, and I don't know if that will continue to be the case in years to come.  Even if we don't have a Christmas dinner anymore, that's okay; there's still a great reason to look forward to Christmas every year, and her name is Gianna Ignozzi.  She won't remember her first Christmas, but when she gets older, seeing her reaction to opening her presents every year will make up for it.