Intertwined

Merry Christmas Sweetheart (part 1)

A/N: part 1 of a Mialotte Christmas.
Thank you to Miasdarling29 for all the English Christmas insights. It was so much fun learning about how you experience Christmas. What would I do without you my gorgeous friend?

It will be over 30 degrees Celsius here on Christmas Day, so we have a few different traditions.

I'll have part 2 out as soon as I can. My kids have caught a tummy bug so I'll see how I go with free time to write!

Love you all my fabulous readers.

***

Mia was out doing the last shop for Christmas tomorrow. The girls were with my mum for the day visiting my brother and his family and Dan would be over tonight. Despite the rollercoaster of the past year, I was really looking forward to Christmas..

A year ago, I was not looking forward to Christmas. A year ago, I had spent the weekend before Christmas at mums house. It was her first year, our first year, without dad. He had passed away in April, not long after Easter holidays.

We had just spent the long weekend with them. Dad had hidden eggs around the back garden for the girls and my niece and nephew. It had been a lovely family weekend. One of those cliche great times of fun and happiness before disaster strikes.

I was at work when I got the call. My brother rang and Marjorie came in and took me to the office. My brother hadn't told her, but his tone was a give away that something was wrong. Dad had a stroke while working in his garden. That was it. No goodbyes, just one last happy weekend. I went completely silent. I froze. Marjorie kept asking me what had happened but I couldn't answer her. I had just spoken to mum the night before, Dad had been in the background making his usual jokes and commentary of our conversation. He had said I love you before I hung up. Did I say I love you back? Did he know?

Marjorie had closed the door and taken the phone to speak to my brother. She comforted me until Dan came to pick me up. I couldn't speak, until I saw mum when we got to the hospital. All I said was 'Mum,' before we held each other and cried. We cried as I helped mum sign paperwork, we cried as my brother took us back to my parents' home and we cried on and off for the next week as we planned Dad's funeral. It took months for me to process it, and mum only left the house for the first few months if we went to get her. 

So, Christmas last year I had spent the weekend before, with mum, keeping her occupied, helping get some boxes sorted that a lot of Dad's things were in, a few more tears were shed, and we finished the girls Christmas shopping.

Dan and I didn't buy gifts for each other anymore. Not that it's particularly unusual for couples with children to do that, but it was just because we didn't really know each other anymore. We didn't hate each other, we just didn't know how to be close, how to connect about who we were, what we liked, wanted, about anything other than the girls. We did argue a bit more than we used to. It's frustrating having to be in such physically close proximity with someone that you feel so distant from emotionally.

When mum and I got to our home last year, we spent Christmas Eve prepping the food, the girls
coming in to help occasionally and snack on fruit, cheese, and lick the spoon mum used to make the batter for the chocolate log. After the girls were asleep, Dan, Mum and I put the presents under the tree. I ate most of the reindeer's carrot, threw back the whiskey, much to my mother's surprise and Dan's disappointment, while mum had the mince pie, so the girls would think Santa and the Reindeer had been.

When we went to bed, I came out of the bathroom, all ready to sleep and Dan walked out of our wardrobe with a red and white gift box wrapped with a red ribbon.