Gratitude Practice 2020 Day 321: The Power of Christmas Eve Pajamas
If you know me at all you understand that my relationship with my Mom was...challenging. There were way more things that we did not see eye to eye on than that which we did. BUT, one of the time tested topics that we alway could agree on was the importance of high quality loungewear. Gifting my Mom a new set of jammies or a toasty warm nightgown as a Christmas gift was a guaranteed win and I gave her a new set of “cozy's” every December for probably the last twenty years of her life. Each time I presented a box wrapped up in red or green paper she knew what would be inside before the first ribbon was untied there were endless smiles every time.
When she passed away almost five year ago, we spent time cleaning out her home and sorting through her life treasures. This task is expectantly an unwanted emotionally charged and often painful rite of passage for any child when their parent dies. When I made my way through her closet, I found a gold mine of Christmas loungewear and like a montage from a cheesy holiday film twenty years of Christmas memories flashed through my heart and mind. Some sets were more loved than others and some sets still had their tags...because how many sets of jammies can one woman really enjoy...I mean really. As I moved from the dark blue fuzzy PJs with light blue flowers to the poppy red and white damask print jammies to the floor length flannel nightgown with silly soft lace around the floppy needless collar I was flooded with happy memories that we shared...which for us...was more often rare than abundant. As I sorted through these soft and cozy sets, my grieving heart held on to these happy memories with a kung fu grip. A rush of tender feelings consume the bereaved during any season of grief and I knew that this time...a season dripping with complicated remembering and reflection would not last forever and so my heart and mind breathed in the good parts...deeply.
Sorting through Mom’s life treasures took months and months and I left the stack of gifted loungewear in her closet for several weeks as I was just not ready to resolve this part of us. In time, I picked a few favorites, tucked them into a box and stashed them in my basement because...well, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
One of the abundant gifts of 2020 has been ample time for me to sort through and organize all treasures stored in our unfinished basement…a task that I had strategically avoided since we built the home. In the last five years, our unfinished space became the collection ground for way more life treasures than I ever expected and it truly took the anticipated end of the world to get me motivated to make sense of these heaping piles and growing stacks. Lots of hours and even more bags of rubbish later, I stumbled upon the box of my mom’s “cozy's”...which I had completely forgotten about. Opening that box and looking at these silly pajamas again brought back the rush of every good feeling and positive memory I had experienced in her home five years previous. Just so grateful that my wiser self decided to hold to a few sets. In time, I moved the box upstairs, popped them into the washer and then added them into my closet...because it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Once the weather turned cold this fall and because the world is still on semi-lockdown my Mothers jammies have...what do all the cool kids say these days...these jammies are coming in clutch. Lots of days and nights have been spent with me wearing these well loved and gifted holiday treasures. And so on Christmas Eve, with my little one finally in bed dreaming of sugar plums and as I am now helping Santa create the next round of holiday magic...I am wearing one of my mothers Christmas “cozy's” and I’m a steeping pot of holiday sentimentality and melancholy potpourri.. I know...I know… just so...I know...
Tonight, I am a puddle of gratitude for how strange and beautiful and complicated and ironic and interconnected life really is. The holidays are ocean deep of expectations and emotions and hopes and memories and traditions and all of them have gone a little sideways this year. This year of homebound slowed down living where everything is both high octane and slow motion at the same time with a heavy dose of isolation and fatigue. BLECH! This pandemic paradox is creating conditions for just so much to rise to the surface. So many big and little feelings and emotions and experiences are transforming all of us in ways nobody could ever imagine or predict. So many new perspectives now balance out and challenge our old practices and beliefs. New priorities. New perspectives. New frames for processing both the past and the present and inevitably informing our collective future. And for so much of this sacred sifting, I’ve been wrapped up in my Mom’s comfy loungewear. Just so weird...you just can’t write this stuff. I’m sure there is lots of interesting psychology at play and even more metaphor readily available to create a blockbuster Hallmark Christmas movie ...titled...what? Something like..."The Christmas Jammies"...oh geeze...just so cheesy...I know....I just can't help myself...
So tonight, grateful for flannel and fleece and terry cloth and knit. Grateful that I stashed a dusty box of gifted loungewear in my basement and for the motivation of this wacko year to unearth them. Grateful for the comfort and security and warmth that these shared PJs provided both my Mom way back when and me now. Grateful to be growing and changing and healing...and grateful that I won’t be needing to purchase any new loungewear for many years to come.
Grateful for the passing of time and how it provides opportunities for healing, space for growth and new perspectives on old time hurts and misunderstandings. What was hard between me and my Mom will always be hard. These details are bone deep and tie and bind us together for the eternities but the impact of these details are finding a new place to live inside my heart and mind. This internal resolution and reordering has taken decades and I’d bet my bank account that the refining is far from finished. I am grateful for this year and how a series of unexpected events has helped me realize how important it is to double down on the tangible positive connections...like our common love of loungewear...and that in time and with lots of work...the fractured jagged angles of disconnection and disagreement can and will soften and realign to create a new and improve path to both purpose and peace. Grateful to be more inclined to choose the good part, to choose carefully where and how to place my focus and energy and to be more consistently choosing long term peace over pain. Grateful that gaps eventually get filled, needs eventually get met and God’s ever present hand is sewing it all together…year after year after year. Grateful that these hard won truths and the growing level of peace and perspective I am experiencing have everything to do with the birth and life of a tiny baby born in Bethlehem 2000+ years ago that so much of the world is celebrating and honoring and remembering right now. Grateful for the hard and the holy aspects of loving other people. Grateful for the curriculum of family relationships. Grateful for the opportunities to practice loving those that are easy to love AND those who just are not so easy to love. Grateful for the incredible gift we have to change and evolve and improve. Grateful for time...for both the short game and the now game...and the really long game. AND...tonight, grateful to be wearing my Mom’s silly flannel nightgown..because a cozy flannel nightgown on a Christmas Eve can solve just about anything.