More decisions

I'm trying to decide what to do for Christmas this year. I realize I never have had to think about it before. There was one year when I was about 9 I went to visit my dad. About 4 years ago I went by myself to visit my grandparents. These are the only Christmases I've ever spent apart from you.

I have options this year---a few friends say I can join them and their families. I could go be an observer of other people's traditions and dynamics. My stepdad is having his dad over for dinner, and my stepsister will be around too. For years and years it was them and I and you. I don't know how much they feel like my family with you gone.

My grandparents say I should come visit them. They have pictures of you everywhere, and more stories than I've even heard. It might be nice--their home is the only place that has stayed the same since I was born. But they aren't you and they aren't family the way you always were.

You should be here. To go look at lights, to buy too many gifts for me, to watch a movie in your armchair, to get up early with your dad and have coffee before the sun is up, to wrap all the gifts so neatly, to know exactly what to get everyone, to tell me what to do for my stepdad, to put up my stocking filled with small practical things--chapstick, nice pens, etc, to sing next to me at the UU Christmas Eve church service. I never thought of us as having lots of holiday traditions or this time of year being a big deal. It feels more so with you being gone, and seeing a completeness in other people's families outside of me. I am reminded of friends who don't visit family at all, who have other traditions, who have made their own families, who don't celebrate any holiday this time of year. I wonder what might become a new tradition, if any. Or what to do in place of this time that will never be how it was. I know this year doesn't have to represent what will come forever and ever. I know no matter where I am, it won't be the same or feel as right as being with you.