My Party of Five: so long 2012

so it's 2013
2012 just flew by. i'm sorry 2012, but i'm happy to put you behind me.
i began the year in the icu of a boston hospital watching my mom slip away. never a good way to start the year. i let 2012 beat me. i got sad, i got angry, maybe even a little depressed. and i excused myself for not loving myself properly because i was grieving.
now that 2012 has gone, i need to start living again. mom would want me to.
so here i am, ready to embrace the new year and find my happy again.

don't get me wrong. 2012 was tough but there were moments of awesome. one of the best things to come of last year was my rediscovery of jesus. out of the darkness that was my mom's death, i found a new church, a new pastor, and a renewed faith that has sustained me through the last year. thank you central congregational church, pastor bruce, and the rest of the wonderful congregation for helping me find a home.

we celebrated our first christmas without my mom. i missed her snickerdoodles, her beautifully wrapped packages, and her shopping companionship but i felt her presence and hopefully honored her by putting a lot more time into wrapping my own packages than i normally do. i went with red and white paper and white or green bows. i loved the way the presents looked under the tree and was truly sad to see them ripped open in less than 30 minutes (at 6:00 am on christmas morning!).
here's how everything looked before the madness

this year, i tried to really simplify things and focus on the true meaning of the season. the kids and i had fun surprising others with small tokens of our appreciation for them. we left donuts and oj for the garbage collectors, a box of chocolates for the milkman, and delivered cookies to the police and fire station on christmas eve. i got these ideas here. though we didn't do all the things we planned, we sure enjoyed thinking of others and surprising them with kindness. it doesn't have to end at christmas either. many of the ideas can be incorporated throughout the year.

here are some more snapshots from our holiday season this year:

maggie's annual holiday recital. she sang and played piano beautifully. so proud of my magpie!

making our gingerbread house, aka as consuming large amounts of candy and frosting : )

this year we broke from tradition and i bought a package of sugar cookie mix from trader joe's . normally, i make my own but time and my love of all things tj's warranted the switch. i wasn't thrilled with the taste but it definitely made things easier. next year, we'll go back to cookies from scratch (sorry tj's - i love you but not your cookie dough!

christmas morning. did i mention we were up at 6am? the teenager here does not look happy - my step-daughter katie who spends every christmas eve/morning with us. i think she secretly likes the chaos : )