For almost as long as I have been living here, Christmas eve has always meant pretty much the same thing: Midnight mass, singing, drinks, bed. It had become a lovely tradition that, when Patrick was born took on another, even more important meaning.

When Patrick arrived, it re-ignited that magic about Christmas that I remembered from being a child. In my mind, this was one tradition we'd always follow. Me heading over to practice on a Christmas eve, Pat getting the kid(s) ready and bringing them over later. A bit of mingling and chatting before we'd head home to open one present each and then into bed.

It was supposed to be our little family thing that we do Christmas eve. And when I say family thing, I include the people we meet at Midnight mass because they have been become my family here.


As we now know, life had other plans. Two Christmasses was all we were allowed to spend with Patrick. We are grateful that we have Eoghan but Christmas is still a very difficult time. The run up to Christmas is one big rollercoaster of ups and downs.

From the excitement of getting the place ready for Eoghan, buying gifts, having that "aha!" moment when you finally find that special something for someone to missing Patrick especially at this time. It's become even more important to me to hang on to these little traditions.  While, due to a variety of reasons, we may not always get to do the very same thing, I am hoping some aspects of the Christmas eve schedule will remain.

But life is busy and ever changing. New traditions will make their way into our life. Who knows what those may be but I guess they will reveal themselves eventually.

Until then, we can only take one step at a time and I should probably apologise in advance for being happy, sad, cranky, irrational, cheerful and mopey....all at the same time.