When I was younger, before I got married, before I really knew what infertility would be like, I used to dream about the Christmas traditions I would start with my children. There were things I wanted to do, things my parents did with us, things they didn't do that I wanted to start in my new family. Things I wanted to share with my children from my childhood while at the same time creating new memories for them to hold on to. For example, my grandma had a little village I knew would be mine, and I can remember watching it as I fell asleep when I was very, very small. Also, I love Christmas pajamas, and I think an entire family in matching jammas on Christmas morning is about the best thing ever. I looked forward to creating my own family, to being able to dictate what memories my children would have of Christmas.
This is our fourth married Christmas. We have no children. No one to wrap presents for. No one to be excited about getting up Christmas morning. No secrets to keep, no toys to hide, nobody to share tradition with. Nobody, that is, but each other.
I try, harder than I should, probably, to make Jesse's Christmases wonderful. I spend more money, more time, more energy, on the perfect gifts, the perfect decorations, the perfect Christmas pajamas. You see, it is so easy to get caught up in the fact that we're just a family of two, so easy to neglect each other because there are no little people to care for. Jess loves Christmas like most normal people love Christmas. It's Jesus' birthday, yay for that, he likes to open presents, but that's about the extent of it. I, on the other hand, would live at the North Pole if I could. Seriously. If I could live somewhere it was Christmas all the time...well, I can't even let myself go there, seeing as how it will never happen. The North Pole, I'm sad to say, is merely a point on a map. Santa does not, in fact, live there. The point is, all these things I love about Christmas, I only have Jesse to share them with. Sometimes I'm tempted to just not do it. After all, it would be much easier to maybe just put up one tree and let that be it. I don't, though, for several reasons. First, I love Christmas so much, I think my heart might break if I didn't go all out in celebrating. Secondly, I always want Jesse to be able to say that his wife did everything in her power to make the holidays special for him. I never want him to say that I was so broken over not having children that I neglected him. I want him to be able to say, always, that his wife loves him intentionally. That she pours everything she can into creating special times for him.
Our lives probably aren't going to be seasoned with babies' laughter and the pitter-patter of little feet. We aren't going to have to stay up until someone goes to bed to fill stockings on Christmas Eve (you know, because Jesse already knows there's no Santa). No one will wake us up every hour on the hour until the sun FINALLY comes up like we used to do to my parents. Still...Jesus was born. He came to earth to save us from the death we deserved. His birth, that tiny baby in the manger, is the beginning of it all, of the greatest heritage any of us have. It's the reason my trees are perfect and my village is huge. This is a celebration, people. A birthday party for the King of Kings. I go all out. Our Christmas celebrations? They are joyful. They might not include children, but they include me and Jesse, they include hearts that are thankful for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, for God who loved us so much He sent the only child He had to die a horrible death so that we might live with Him in heaven, for Mary, who knew that she wouldn't get to keep that tiny infant, that she had to share Him with the world. Hearts that are joyful because we have each other, we have wonderful families, we have food to eat and a bed to sleep in. Our Christmas celebrations look differently than most people's, but they are so full of joy and wonder, so full of tradition.
And yes, they include Christmas pajamas, a tiny village, and all the movies I loved as a kid. After all, just because I don't have kids doesn't mean I can't act like one. ;)
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