It’s not the same. It hasn’t been the same since before Thanksgiving. My nieces were there to give me hugs and kisses and lots of attention. A friend of my sister brought her seven-month old and the little one was a wonderful reminder of what the day was supposed to be about. But something was missing. It’s like everything has lost its flavor and no matter how much I work at recognizing or acknowledging how lucky I am to have my family around me, it was all flat to me.

Because dinner was a bit delayed on Christmas Eve, the folks decided to pass out and open the gifts before dinner. I protested because the sun wasn’t even down, but decided against making too much of a deal about it be cause I was somewhat uncomfortable making any demand that we abide by tradition (tradition isn’t my strong suit). Alas, gift opening and dinner only lasted until 7:30. I wish I could have enjoyed the time with my family more but I had this gnawing emptiness that I was trying really hard to ignore. I decided to go home around 8:30 so as not to spoil anyone else’s holiday with my ill spirit. I watched some TV then fell asleep long before midnight. I told myself that I needed to get up early for church in the morning.

For a very long time I had held on to this hope that I’d spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my beloved. But that was over now and I had to be okay with it being this way. Funny thing was that we’d never spent a Christmas (or Thanksgiving, for that matter) together and chances were that circumstances would have worked against that happening anyway. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy.

We had communicated over the past weeks, but neither one of us seemed to have the will to ask the other about getting together. When her soon-to-be ex- was going to take her boys to visit his folks was unclear and she anticipated being overly busy getting last minute things together for there to be any plan. Then when she found out that her church wasn’t going to have services on Christmas day, she hinted that she might come out to my church. I guess she was really busy on Christmas Eve and then didn’t get up early enough to make it to my church on Sunday. Then she got frustrated working on her son’s new iPod Nano while her kids were gone visiting the soon-to-be ex-in-laws and sent me a terse text message: “technology sucks.” Later she sent me a wacky Christmas e-card, but it was mostly meant to cheer her up because she wasn’t adjusting very well to the boys not being around and was probably feeling the same emptiness I was experiencing (though she didn’t spell it out). Thus endth my empty xmas. It’s just not the same without someone special in ones life. Shit. JBB