In which I contemplate How It Goes at Christmas.

 Christmas is a hard one.
 Part of it for me is that it was always a time that I felt disenfranchised due to not being mainstream in religion or culture.  Christmas was always low key, and How it Went was small gifts, dinner with my parents, and quiet time reading books and talking.  Now that Dad is gone what went before is no longer there. It is one of the times I deeply miss my uncles, and especially miss my dad.  One of the tasks of loss is to find a new set of How It Goes.
 I know that for the next years part of How It Goes  involves making this time  one of comfort and joy for Mom and me as well.  The question I keep asking myself is how do I want this to be, What do I want for me? and how do I want to remember this part of Mom's life, how do I want to remember being me?
 Mom and I are beginning to instigate some new traditions.  Last year we went out looking at the Christmas lights We enjoyed it so much that this year we did it again and so part of the new paradigm of How It Goes is that after dinner on Christmas Eve we ride around and look at the lights. 
This year I added a thing that after the lights, I read at least a part of my favorite Christmas book, A Child's Christmas In Wales. We got to the part about the postman and the presents before Mom was too tired to concentrate.  We read the rest after the Christmas Brunch the next day.
There needs to be something  to look forwards to in the morning, so next year (if there is one) I am going to instigate stockings.  After that I went back up to home and went out to the Holidance.  It is the best thing I know of for what to do on a day where nothing is open and nothing is supposed to happen. An evening dancing off the meal you ate and overate during, looks like just what I like.
Slowly a new How It Goes is getting put together.
 It looks like the rest of my life, under construction but liveable.