Denial is a not River in Africa

What better way to procrastinate than to write a blog entry for a blog that I have not kept updated? From what am I procrastinating? Christmas.

Well, not Christmas, but Christmas shopping. Leaving the house to buy gifts that I can ill -afford for people who don't really need anything.

JR is off for the evening - sleeping over a friend's house. Friend's mom e-mailed me "Enjoy your evening." How do I say that I never really enjoy my evenings without JR? Even when being with him means we are procrastinating by hanging out on the couch watching yet another Disney comedy on TV instead of ... shopping, paying bills, cleaning, unpacking, whatever chore I could be doing that arguably is more necessary than spending time on the couch with my son. I still prefer being with him and I never prefer these nights when he is out of the house (no matter how many DVR'ed episodes of Top Chef or Project Runway I can watch uninterrupted).

So I have a free evening and Christmas is no longer weeks or days away but hours. Yet for more than half the folks on my list I have no present. The presents I do have are unwrapped.

Still I procrastinate.

I think I spent the first year or so after Joe's death in denial. Denial about the state of the family finances. Denial about the depth of my grief. I really thought that I was an "expert" in grief, having lost so many family members (nana, grandmother, mother, father, youngest brother). So I never expected that this loss, the loss of my husband, of JR's father, would be so outrageously difficult.

I work so hard at keeping up appearances. Everything is fine. We're doing great. Look at JR. He's happy. He has tons of friends. You would never know there is a hole in our family.

And mostly, I am great at this deception. I have so many friends and such a great social life and yet, tonight, my evening without JR when I should be off shopping for gifts, I am sitting here in tears, with no idea who I could even call.

Tomorrow morning I will go to the office. I will leave early and head off to the stores and somehow finish the list. I will meet up with JR and his babysitter. I will argue with JR about appropriate clothes for the evening. We will go to see the Nutcracker with Joe D's cousins, who care for us and take care of us. We will watch the daughter of one of Joe D's best friends dance in two of the dances. Then I will come home and frantically wrap presents. Christmas Eve will be filled with Joe D's family and with church. There will be lots of food. We will eat many, many dishes of fish. Presents will be exchanged. I will beg off early because we need to go home and get ready for Santa. JR will go to sleep. My co-worker and her son will come and help me set up JR's big present.

Christmas morning will arrive. Santa will have arrived. There will be magic, then disappointment. No dog, no signed Babe Ruth baseball, no hot tub. None of those big ticket items on the list that never did get sent to Santa. Maybe the in-laws will come to see the tree. Then dinner at my co-workers. Then on Monday, lunch at my cousins' house - where JR can play with her little ones and my aging aunt, a religious sister, will have a chance to see everyone.

And everyone I see will think that I am fine. And that this is a Merry Christmas.

But it is not.

Holiday of Playdates

The past few days have been spent in a whirlwind of playdates and events where JR has found friends of every stripe. It has also been just another reminder of how small our world truly is.

Yesterday, before we managed to get out of our pjs, the family across the street called. They had just returned from visiting grandparents in another state and wanted JR to come over to see their gifts from Santa. We made our way across the street until 11:30, when we had to leave to walk over to the home of one of JR's classmates. His mom had put together an awesome New Year's Eve party for the kindergarten set, complete with a countdown at noon, lots of confetti, poppers, silly string, and noisemakers. While there, we learned that C's across-the-street neighbor is JR's friend T, who used to live around the corner from us, and whose parents are active members of our community garden. We also learned that C is in the same ballet class as our across-the-street neighbor, whose home we had just left.

As we were leaving C's party (with a confetti-filled treat bag and a snow globe with JR's picture inside it), my cell phone rang. JR's preschool friend S, who lives in another neighborhood and now goes to a different school, was heading to our neighborhood playground. Would we like to meet up with them? A few minutes in the playground convinced the moms that we needed to be inside, so we invited S and his mom in. JR and S discovered that when his rocket launcher is filled with confetti before being launched, it makes a REALLY AWESOME mess. And I mean REALLY AWESOME mess.

Five minutes after S left with his mom, my cellphone rings again. N's dad was calling - he was taking N and a soccer ball out to the corner park - did JR want to come along. Of course he did. After a few minutes outside, the parents again decided that we needed to be inside, so we lured the boys into N's house for hot chocolate.

We made our way home around 6:00 to prepare our portion of the annual New Year's dinner being held at our friends home. JR was excited, because his friends E and C would be there. The adults ate antipasto, ravioli with sausage and meatballs, venison sausage, salad, another pasta dish and lovely strawberry shortcake and Italian rum cake while the kids rushed their way through a few ravioli so that they could head upstairs to play and watch Happy Feet.

We were home before midnight, but did hear the cheering outside as 2007 ended and 2008 began.

This morning, we headed to E and C's house for the traditional New Year's brunch before heading out to the parade with E and C - where we ran into our across-the-street neighbors, N and his parents, and JR's old preschool friend L, who now lives in the suburbs but had come into town for the parade.

We ended the day at my friend Paul's annual post-parade party - where we ran into one of JR's school friends.

So will the theme for the New Year be: "It's a Small World" ?

As Dictated to Mom

Somehow, we lost this letter and never mailed it to Santa. Nevertheless, Santa figured out almost everything on the list (except the Leapster - we're hoping Uncle Geno in Florida will come through with that one).

Holiday Preparations