An "A-HA" Moment?

I was talking to a colleague of mine earlier this week, and I was telling her how I was really surprising myself. I told her that the holiday season was not turning out to be as hard as I thought it was going to be. It confused me, but I thought to myself, wow...maybe I’ll really be OK.

Well...today I had an "A-HA" moment...or should we call it a "DUH" moment instead?

Because it dawned on me tonight...of course the holiday season wasn’t bothering me....because I was ignoring it. I have not listened to any Christmas Carols, opting instead to stick to classic rock. Aerosmith’s Dude Looks Like a Lady is a lot more appealing to me than Celine Dion’s Oh Holy Night. (Well, let’s face it, even before Bobby passed away, we would both probably have made the same choice.) I have not decorated my house yet. Not one thing, except for the Lego Advent Calendar that the kids pulled out just so they could put together the Lego figures. And holiday shopping? I’ve been doing all my holiday shopping on-line. So of course it was not bothering me...because I was not bothering with it.

But that changed today. I dropped my son off at a friend’s house and my other son was at Boy Scouts, so I figured it was a good time to run to the store to pick up some gifts I hadn’t found online. So I went to Kohl’s. As soon as I walked in, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Holly and poinsettias and Christmas trees all around! Slow sappy Christmas songs over the PA. (Thank goodness they weren’t playing Elvis’s Blue Christmas). An inordinate amount of husbands and wives shopping together, and don’t even ask me about the men’s department. (All the shirts I saw that would have looked great on Bobby....)

So boy, was I ever wrong when I spoke to my colleague earlier this week. I’m not handling it well. Not at all. So like the rest of us who are experiencing our first holiday season without our beloved, I’m muddling through the best that I can. I’ll decorate the house for the kids, but I’ll stick to my Classic Rock on the radio. Small doses. That is all I can take right now.