My Holidays

Starting as a very young child my family made every Christmas filled with love and magic. They taught me what Christmas was and how Santa Claus was a very special part too. No matter where we were our home was filled with traditions and so many other special things for the holidays. We never had a lot but all needs were met. My family put in a lot work to make everything so magical and meaningful. I love Christmas and what it has meant to me and how it shaped my life.

I was to have been born in mid-December but arrived at the end of November. My parents wanted a Christmas kind of name for me and there are many thus they selected Holly, after the pretty red holly-berries that are everywhere with Christmas. Had I been a boy have no idea what my name would have been, they wouldn’t tell me LOL.

Life moved along and I kept as close as I could to how I like to do my Christmas’s. After my MS diagnosis at age 48 I scaled down some of what I did. Then after falling into a Christmas tree I was decorating, I saw more changes needed to be put in place. SO each year I did less. By now all my family lived very far apart and changes came from that too.

Now I am 72 and still do what I can but made a lot of changes. The magic of Christmas is what’s in your heart and the giving that happened so very long ago. I dislike the commercialism of Christmas to no end so do my best to ignore that part.

What I learned about all that goes with holiday time when one has MS is to get good communication going with loved ones. Explain in detail what help you need from others and why and expect them to understand. Be innovative in how you accomplish tasks that were once easy. For example buy a much smaller (fake) tree that has lights already on it, big help for sure. Oh I know, I miss the scent of live evergreens too!  Don’t send out as many Christmas cards, I don’t  know about you but my handwriting is really bad due to MS. Oddly I do fine on a keyboard though and print and make things as  much as I can this way, it helps! Also I start early in December on my TO DO List for Christmas so as not to tire myself out on any one thing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL, HOLLY