The other night, we spent our first night at our new house. For the last month or so, we’ve been staying with my mom as we waited to have a new heating system installed. The new heating system is still not installed, but we did setup some temporary heat to allow us to live in the house, which is something we wanted to do so we can spend Christmas at the new house.
After we put Annalise and Nathaniel to bed, I walked by Isabella’s room and stared at the furniture sitting in her room. As I stood in the doorway, I knew that furniture would likely never be used, but I imagined a smiling and healthy Isabella getting ready for bed or doing her homework at her desk. I could see her dancing in her room as she listened to the latest Taylor Swift song, her long curly hair bouncing as she hopped and sang. I could see her running down the stairs with Annalise and Nathaniel on Christmas morning squealing in delight as she saw all the gifts underneath the tree. But she wouldn’t tear through the gifts, as Nathaniel would, she would carefully take the wrapping off each gift.
Of course, all of these visions will only take place in my head. Although I try to get into the Christmas spirit, it’s hard not to feel a little guilty knowing that our family is incomplete. With the move, we never had the chance to get our Christmas cards ready, but I don’t know if it was because of lack of time or just the thought of trying to pick out a picture for the card that would be gut-wrenching. We also didn’t pick out our traditional annual Christmas tree ornament, again, we just don’t know how to deal with it at this time. Even our Christmas tree isn’t fully decorated with just some lights and a fraction of the ornaments that we normally put on.
I’d imagine it’ll get easier and better with time. This is certainly a transitional Christmas as it will be our first one without Isabella and the first one at the new house.
But enough about us. From our family to yours, we wish you a peaceful and Merry Christmas. Here are a few recent pics.
And finally, this was one of Isabella’s favorite Christmas songs to sing! Enjoy!
