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Health & Fitness

Breaking Bleak With Belleek

Find ways to remember loved ones passed in present holidays through traditional activities.

Each year as the Christmas season gets rolling I have a day of restless melancholy and discontent. It usually happens after the tree and whatever decorations I’ve chosen for that year are up. I feel sluggish. I don’t want to attend to my to-do list or any holiday events. It seems like I’ve forgotten something important. Then I see the date on my calendar or phone and I have a forehead smacking moment.

 

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My mom was born on December 10, 1917 and she passed away in 2002. And even though 11 years have passed since she left us an innate sense of incompleteness overcomes me as her birthday nears. And thinking about her passing reminds me of all the other loved ones I’ve lost. The number inevitably piles up for us all as we move along life’s continuum. So I’ve had to find ways to compensate for my loss.

 

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The best cure for missing family and friends passed is to make them part of my present holiday. I remember my mom by collecting Waterford crystal Christmas ornaments. She didn’t splurge very often on unnecessary or luxury items, but my mom collected a series of Waterford ornaments and hung them by ribbons in front of the large bay window that spanned the front of my parents’ sunny formal living room where they would catch the light. The year after she died I started my own collection of the Waterford snow crystal series. Each year a new one is released. They’re beautiful in my eyes, but I’m a little greedier than my mom was, so I added Swarovski crystal Christmas stars, too. I hang them on a miniature tree made for this type of ornament and every time I see it I think of my mom and it makes me happy.

 

I can’t say my dad, who passed away in 2005, was into crystal anything, but his dad was born in County Cork, Ireland, and he was enormously proud of his Irish heritage. The year he passed away my sister and I visited The Irish Boutique in Long Grove, IL. They specialize in all things Irish and they were having a sale on the day after Christmas when we arrived. I was quite taken with the Belleek porcelain annual Christmas bell series, and I started my collection of it that day. I’ve bought most of the collection at really low prices on eBay, but this year I finally filled in the gaps of missing years by a return visit to the Long Grove store. When I look at my Christmas tree all covered in adorable little cream buildings dotted with a shamrock here and there, I think of my dad. And I think of his mom who told us all the stories of our Irish heritage. And it washes away all of the sad and fills me up with good memories.

 

By now readers may be horrified by my use of gluttonous consumerism and covetousness to commemorate my mostly-frugal loved ones. But I keep fond memories of them close through less commercial, and more meaningful, ways too.

 

Each Christmas I serve an apple pie in honor of my Nana Walsh—my dad’s mom—who baked one for us every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I slice our holiday meat using the carving set that belonged to my Grandpa Hughes, my mom’s dad. I sneak in a viewing of White Christmas because my dad loved the scene where Danny Kaye pretends to hurt his leg. No one else will watch it with me, so I turn on the commentary by Rosemary Clooney and spend 90 minutes with her on memory lane. My dad also loved Bing Crosby, so I play lots of Bing throughout the season. You’d be surprised how many Christmas albums he recorded! I hang the Christmas stockings my mom made. We play Hearts and Sevens and use the poker chips that belonged to my dad for the many card games we played together when I was a kid, and later when my kids were young. And I make sure to spend the holiday with our little family of four, passing down old Walsh family traditions and repeating those we’ve created for ourselves.

 

Have a merry Christmas with your loved ones passed and present!

 

Photos Courtesy of Easy Weekly Meals

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