Chocolate Covered Cherries

This is not a post about eating. It is post about grieving. Every year all my life chocolate covered cherries were under the tree for my father. We gave them to him when we were kids, and then my kids gave them to him. Every single year of my entire life. This year I noticed them first when I was waiting in a long line at the grocery store just before Thanksgiving. Then as Christmas approached and I was doing my shopping and thinking of what to get for who, I could not imagine Christmas without having a gift for my father. There are so many fond memories of him and Christmas. I could not imagine watching It's a Wonderful Life - that was his all time favorite Christmas movie and we watched it every Christmas with him, even in the later stages of his Alzhiemer's. I finally started crying last Sunday on the way to the mall. I had bought a box of chocolate covered cherries to put under the tree in his memory.

I decided that I would go to his grave and bring a wreath, and the chocolate covered cherries and have one with him. I had not been to the grave since they set the tombstone. So I went and picked out a pretty wreath with silver ribbons. Silver Bells is one of the carols I remember him singing. We have a recording of him playing the guitar and singing it. He would play guitar and record us singing carols when we were kids. We still listen to those recordings sometimes at Christmas. My brother keeps the archives of all the family recordings.

I never visited a grave before. It was comforting to decorate it and to talk to him and I even sang some of Silver Bells. It was cold. I cried but I felt like I had spent some of my Christmas with him. I felt like I included him in my life.

I have been kind of up and down. My weight is at my pre Thanksgiving weight and that is good. I am not that intersted in food and the Christmas Eve and Christmas day food will be easier and safer than Thanksgiving. I am having the family at my house both days. It stresses me a bit but then I am also excited, too. I am ignoring the rental house situation. I got it ready to show and already have one prospect that wants to move in the first of February. I will get back to that next week.

I wanted to check in and wish anyone still reading my bog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!