Christmas Present
Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 01/16/19
My family draws names for Christmas, I mean come on! The size of our family alone makes is outrageous to buy for everyone. Not only does it get expensive but it was starting to become an all day event. So a few years ago we went to drawing names. My sister Alexa was not really okay with that and continues to give small little gifts each year. This year when she did it I thought we should start doing that too!
I hadn't bought anything on Christmas morning when we were all together but we actually didn't fully celebrate Christmas on Christmas. My oldest brother lives out of state and his son had a band event right before Christmas. We decided to all wait till they got here to exchange gifts so I had time to figure something out!
Reyna had given me this beautiful Hallmark angel ornament that was for breast cancer on Christmas and a portion of the profit was donated to breast cancer research. Each year I get an ornament that has to do with something that happened during the year and save it for my kids. One year we were Inside Out for Halloween so I got each of the kids an ornament of the character they were. My hope is that one day when they have their first Christmas tree I can give them a box of ornaments that represents memories of their life. I told Scott I wanted to get the kids this ornament for this year. He said they had to go all over to find the one that they got me and it was the only one. It didn't look good.
However, a day or two after Christmas we went to the Pleasanton mall with my older sister Deni and her family and the Hallmark store had all kinds of breast cancer stuff. The kids found necklaces they wanted and bracelets. Low and behold there was a few ornaments sitting there! I grabbed three for the kids and gave them to Scott to buy. He looked at the box and said maybe we should get my parents one. So I went back and grabbed one for them. He took that box and said maybe we should get everyone an ornament. After all cancer has changed my entire family. I looked and Deni and asked if she would put it up or if it was weird. She thought it was a great idea so I went back and dug to see if they would have enough. This meant I needed nine ornaments. Guess how many breast cancer ornaments they had left? That is right, nine.
When we got together to exchange gifts I stood up and said that I had bought something after Christmas for each of the families. I said some things about how much I loved them, how they have helped me, how lucky we are to have each other, and I honestly do not remember because I was trying so hard not to start sobbing. I told them they didn't have to put it up but I hoped that when they looked at it that it was a reminder of what our family is capable of overcoming.
I know I say this in a lot of my posts but I just adore my family. My love for them is huge. I do not know what I would do without each and every one of them. My crazy chemo brain didn't even think to take a single picture so I asked my siblings to send me a picture the other day if they still had the ornament out. Alexa was the only one with it still out and these were the pictures I got from her goof ball kids.
