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House Fire Christmas Post - December 22, 2019

Update May 2020 - I'm currently going back through my Facebook posts and deciding what I want to leave up for public consumption and what I want to leave private (mostly photos of family that I don't want to leave accessible forever). I thought posting the text of those posts, along with some of the photos I'm okay with leaving public, here on the blog and backdating the posts to the days they went up would be a good alternative.

If you've landed here in the midst of a difficult season (that is difficult for no fault of your own), I hope this helps. Leave a comment or send me a message (catpollockwrites @ gmail .com - remove the spaces) if you want someone to talk to, or even just someone to listen.


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Sunday, December 22, 2019 - 3:20PM

A little teary-eyed this afternoon...

Over the last ten to fifteen years, Mom had been steadily working on hand-made crossstitch stockings for each of her children, their spouses, and her grandbabies. Most of us had ours in our possession before the fire this summer, but the ones who didn't lost them because the stockings were stored inside the house. Mom's sewing material stash is growing again, so she was able to make replacements for the niece and nephews who were without.

Well, Mom gave the new stockings to my niece and nephews this afternoon. I was doing pretty well until my nephew started talking about how the stockings go by the fireplace, and I lost it a little bit (I can feel them coming back up to the surface as I'm writing this, tbh). Because the fireplace isn't there anymore, and so many of my favorite memories of Christmas morning are centered around that fireplace and the house it was a part of.

It's been six months and some things are not as difficult as others, but this holiday season has been harder for me than the holiday season has been in quite a while. There's been some wonderful things happening in the midst of it, for sure. I just wouldn't say this season of life is the easiest to walk through.

All this to say - I'd love if you could keep me and my family (and others going through some hard things) in your thoughts and prayers as you go through the rest of the holiday season.

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