Merry Christmas! I sincerely hope you are spending time with family today (instead of reading my site). I hope all of my readers have a fabulous holiday season that is filled with love, laughter, good food, and perhaps a great gift or two. There won’t be any reviews or giveaways posted today as I’m taking today off. I hope you aren’t too disappointed. However, now that dad has passed away, I am all too aware of how important it is to spend time with family. You just never know when it will be the last time you see someone. So, be nice and joyful today.

It Does Not Feel Like Christmas

I am sure that today will be hard for me and my family. I am baking homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on Christmas Eve, because I used to bake peanut butter cookies with my mom back in the day. It’s been really hard these past few weeks. I miss dad. I think about him multiple times a day. I do better during the day because I can stay busy. However, it really hits me at night when the house is quiet and I feel like he should be walking down the hallway to go to the bathroom and check on me.

With dad (and my grandmother who passed away 9 years ago) being gone, it really doesn’t feel Christmas this year. It feels like something is missing to complete the Christmas festivities. I miss talking to dad. I am also sad because I went to visit dad in the hospital on Thanksgiving and I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. His response was “I want to come home for Christmas.” Obviously, that didn’t happen. So, it breaks my heart. I know he is better off now because he is no longer suffering. However, I want him here for selfish reasons.

Instead of snow, it’s raining here in Virginia for Christmas. That doesn’t help any with the spirit. Then, we put up our Christmas tree last week. It’s a pre-lit tree. As soon as mom plugged it in, a whole string of lights was out (right in the middle of the tree). Then, a couple of days later, another strand went out. Also, our tree topper that we’ve had for years wouldn’t work either.

Like I said, it doesn’t feel like Christmas this year… at all. I don’t know how hard today will be. Nonetheless, it is Christmas and I want to spend it with my family and loved ones. I haven’t been able to deal with being around many people lately. So, I’m hoping today goes well.

Merry Christmas!

You may have noticed that I was Tweeting up a storm at Mixed Conference. However, before I even left the mountain, everything came to a screeching halt. That’s because my boyfriend came to pick me up from the conference and had to deliver the news that my dad passed away Sunday morning at around 2 am. I had sort of hinted at some issues at home in my posts recently and that was because dad was in the hospital. He never did like me to publicize his health. So, I never mentioned everything that was going on. I want to honor his requests by not going into detail about everything. I’ll just say that it was a very rough couple of weeks for me.

My Dad Passed Away

That being said, we thought he was going to come home in a few weeks. If I had known he was going die, I might not have attended the conference. Nonetheless, I went to it and virtually all of my family knew before me and then had to keep it a secret until I was notified. I logged on Monday night to put up a couple of quick posts but haven’t been online much at all since I found out. I also haven’t worked but 1 day so far this week. It’s been really hard.

In trying to honor my father’s requests, I am not going to post much more about his health or his last extremely difficult weeks of life. I simply wanted to let everyone know what is going on with me as I’ve been a bit out of touch recently. I promise I am trying to read the emails and will try to respond to them in due time. I’m also trying to keep up with my deadlines. Like I said though, it’s been hard. I still can’t believe he’s gone and I don’t know where to go from here in many aspects of my life. I’m just trying to maintain some sort of normalcy and continue on with life right now. So, if it takes me longer to respond to emails or something, please understand. I am trying and I am still here.