Skipping Christmas

This Holiday Season at the Calder House there will be:

* No Christmas lights hanging from the roof

* No Christmas tree decorated in the living room

* No Christmas cards being sent to family and friends

Because this year, the Calders are skipping Christmas.

I know that this must sound very odd. Who on earth would ever want to skip Christmas?

Just a few years ago, I never would have believed that Christmas could be anything other than the most wonderful time of the year. But as I have been forced to celebrate the holidays without my girls, Christmas brings more sorrow than joy because at every turn there are blatant reminders of what is missing in my life.

Tears come to my eyes as I put ornaments on the tree that were given to us in memory of Faith and Hope. I become saddened at the sight of little girls in their matching holiday dresses. I begrudgingly send out Christmas cards that do not have a picture of my daughters on the front. And it takes everything in me to keep a smile on my face as I watch other children open their presents on Christmas morning, not my own.

Yes, for someone like me Christmas is a terribly sad time. And I just don't have it in me to go on as if everything in my life is normal, when it is anything but normal.

So instead of dreading the holidays this year, Mike and I decided to give ourselves something to look forward to.

In a few short weeks, the we will take off on a vacation of a lifetime - 10 glorious days in the sunny island paradise of Maui, where the only thing on our agenda is to lay on the beach, feel the sand between our toes, listen to the waves, and perhaps, see a site or two.

Even though this is not how we would have ideally liked to spend Christmas (you know, with our two girls and another baby on the way), we are bursting with excitement over the chance for the two of us to get away together, and for the opportunity to experience something wonderful that we might not "normally" have done.