A Christmas Without Karen

Karen liked Christmas mostly because it gave her a chance to give to others. She loved that. She took great pleasure in choosing the right gifts.

We didn’t decorate a tree for the first several years we were together. Instead, we’d do other decorations, like her little Santas, wreaths, and other little odds and ends. We started putting up trees a few years ago, but nothing too fancy. It wan’t until last year that we decided to go all out with the decorations, and put up everything we had.

When we went looking at trees, we started out looking at the “normal” size ones, but people had picked through most of the nice ones. After looking for about an hour or so I suggested that she might consider a larger one, and she jumped on the opportunity. I think she was only holding back because she knew she couldn’t help very much with setting it up.

Here’s a pic that I took when we got home with the 11-1/2′ tree strapped to the roof.

She was pretty excited about the huge tree. She helped me as much as she could setting it up. Unfortunately, the only pic I have of her helping is with her in her “comfy clothes”, and she’d not appreciate me posting that pic on line.

But I can show you a pic of the tree when we were done setting it up.

This year I only did one decoration. I put a lighted star in a tree for Karen. It’s near the driveway up in the front field, and powered off a pair of car batteries I hid behind the tree. I’m not feeling festive, but I did want to do something in her memory. I’ll see if I can take a good pic before the batteries go dead.

I’d like to thank everybody for the Christmas cards. Karen was the card writer in the family, so please forgive that you won’t receive one from me. But I am grateful for everybody, and hope you have a nice holiday season. <3

P.S. I’ve changed my mind about the date for our gathering in Karen’s memory. I should have not chosen the one year anniversary of her passing. As soon as I started thinking of the day, I realized that I’d prefer to spend that day in private reflection and mourning, and feel that another weekend would be easier for me. I’ve tentatively penciled in the following Saturday, May 25. Thank you for your understanding.