First Christmas without Alexander

I was very anxious about Christmas, as was everyone in my family. I have rarely felt that much tension among us and yet not directed against anyone. And then it still turned out to be halfway nice if I can say that.
Luke and I came to my parent’s house on Christmas eve. We had planned to attend church that afternoon at 4.30 pm, so there was a little chatting before we had to get changed and ready for the service. My sister Sophie was sick so she stayed home for the service. All of us were waiting in the hallway for Dorothée to get ready. Finally I went upstairs to find her in tears saying that she did not want to come along. She had had a fight with Sophie again and was scared of everyone at church seeing that she had cried. Thankfully I could convince her to come along but it was so awful to feel this tension between all of us! This little problem made us late for church; we entered just on time into a completely packed church, only standing room left. It was a nice service, the priest mentioned the grieving and sad people around this supposedly joyful time, too, which really helped all of us, especially my mum. We sang a lot during the service, something we had always done at home. When Silent Night was sung it gave me a weird feeling since I never really liked that song but Alexander really loved it. After the service we picked Sophie up and went to the cemetery. It was dark but there were so many candles light on the graves in the snow that it had a very peaceful atmosphere around it. Some people had put up little Christmas trees on their graves and on almost every single on of them were candles lit. My mum had a branch of our Christmas tree cut of with a few ornaments on and a candle that we put on Alexander’s and my grandpa’s grave. It was the first time that all of us were together at the grave again since the funeral. There were very sad moments but it was also very comforting to have the support of the family. We are really trying hard to be there for each other. After a prayer we headed home again, hoping, that we could leave some of the anxiety and tension at the gravesite.
I had been talking with my therapist that it might be helpful for me and my family if I took some of the cooking over around the holidays. My mum usually does the cooking but does not enjoy it all too much. I love to cook but not at home where I don’t feel like I can control the process. Now the plan was that I just preplanned everything and then both my mum and me would be more relaxed knowing that the cooking would be taken care of. It really worked, and on Christmas eve me and my siblings all worked together to get some sauces fixed for the fondue meal we had planned. It turned out to be a nice, peaceful and, as Sophie or Dorothée put it, very grown up meal. First we went into the living room where they had the Christmas tree and heard the Christmas story read by my dad, sung a song and then went over to have the meal. After eating for a couple of hours we thought it would be nice to open some presents, which we did in a relaxed way. Instead of two people opening all their gifts at the same time we took turns after one gift this time. Everything was a bit different but it still felt alright since there was no pressure to do something the ‘right’ way. Around midnight we then settled with a glass of wine around the table, reliving the night and relaxing some more. I think all of us found this Christmas to be in the end almost more peaceful and harmonic than the previous one (Alexander had caused a very tense atmosphere then).
Even though this was a bit longer I felt like I needed to share this, also to remind me of it in the future.