Sally's World

Hi Everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, I know I have been absent lately, I've been going through a bit of a hard time, obviously missing Aaron at this time of year is a given, but there are a few other things going on that I'm trying to figure out.

I'm hoping to make the new year a bit of a fresh start...emotionally certainly.

I miss my blogging, but thank you all for being there for me still.

Have a lovely Christmas,

Sal xxxxxxxxxx

It is now Dec, and like the last three Decembers I am getting nervous.

It used to be that December was my favourite month of all time, I became a mum on December the 5th, my birthday is the 11th and then of course there's Christmas.

We're big on Christmas, Aaron and I shared a love of all things tacky, if it jiggled, sang, glittered, we had to have it.

So now, I dread December, I don't get to celebrate Aarons birthday, not in the same way, so thinking about enjoying my own birthday a few days later falls flat, and Christmas is not the same without my Aaron.

I make sure we celebrate, and I do smile and love to see the kids faces light up, my fear is that I'm just going through the motions...or is that, in fact what I have to do until it comes naturally.

Saw this and had to post it....still laughing...

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not
produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the
Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which
stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them
were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were
out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards
cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were
scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a
shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves
had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor.. In his frustration,
he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of
little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the
broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the
broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door,
yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big
Christmas tree.
The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a
lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me
to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

Sorry, I know I said I’d be back the other day, but I’m having trouble getting in the right time zone. I’ve been getting a bit more sleep lately too as I went and got all chilled out, so now there really are less hours in the day. Now, I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m complaining, and as Dave and my brothers said when I complained after feeling groggy from my first night of five hours sleep, “that’s how you’re supposed to feel when you wake up you dozy cow…you’re not supposed to go from sleep to wonder woman in a tenth of a second.” Well that was news to me.

I’ve loaded a few photos for you, this is my family, and we had a brilliant Christmas. But I mean it is us...so not all ran smoothly, my brother insisted on frying the turkey, not something I heard of, but big in America, and after all the fuss I made, it almost burnt me to admit that it was delicious, non-greasy and best of all only took and hour and a quarter to fry and twenty three pound bird. I wanted to raid the kitchen and see what else we could fry, veggies, chocolate, the toaster…but they wouldn’t let me. Such spoil sports.

By the time the kids had finished opening presents it looked like we lived in a toy shop, and I have to say, kids toys are getting better and better. My nephews got the guitar hero for the wii and Dave was the one on his back on the floor, spinning around in circles like a demented rock star….his excuse was that ‘you have to show the kids how its done’ I guess my brother was just grateful he didn’t smash it into the TV or set it alight.


We ate too much, drank too much, fell off of skateboards and almost ran Dave over in the golf cart, but generally it was great. We were sorry to leave, even if my brothers breathed a huge sigh of relief at our departure.

But joking aside, it is hard having family so far away. It’s not so bad because we have e-mail, phone, facebook and of course blogging, but it’s not the same as being able to give the kids cuddles when we like. Its lovely to go and stay and have quality time together, and the kids just slip right back into it as if they’ve never been apart. Everyone just gets so big while we’re gone.


So we are looking forward to getting back out there getting some sunshine and seeing our old friend Mickey Mouse…

Take care

Sal, Dave, Aaron, Jordan, Robyn, Deion, Garry, Claire, Zoe, harry, Connor, Lilly, Danny, Kelly, Rhys, Lewis and Tyler xxxxxxxxxxx

Well, we’re home after a lovely holiday in Orlando and some lovely family times together over Christmas and the lead up to it. We did a lot of swimming, said ‘Hi’ to Mickey Mouse (he never seems to age!) and ate our body weight in ice cream regularly!

It was a little harsh landing to the solitary stingy one degree weather though. To think ten hours previously we were all sitting by the pool sipping cool drinks in the ninety degree heat!!! (non-alcoholic…of course!!!)

I’m almost over the jet lag, and almost back on British time (if I ever was on such a thing in the first place!). And now the kids have finally let me on one of the computers after catching up with their friends/downloading ring tones/synchronising i-pods.

I’m not going to go into to much detail now, I have lots of news, lots of photos and one of the best things is that I got some great insight into some of the reasons about how I hold onto the grief about Aaron and all that surrounds that.

So I’m off to get some sleep now, tomorrow I’ll start posting some photos and blogging. I would have done more while we were away, but everywhere we went there were problems with the computers, so after the first couple of attempts, I gave up and decided it was a sign, so now you’ll be sick of me again in no time!

Take care

Sal xxx

Well, we jet off early in the morning, so keeping with the holiday theme, the video blog this week is about where we have been that we love, and where we would go if we had the chance. Look out for Trojans little jibe about me being past clubbing!! Hmmm!! And he cheated…he picked two places…

I’ll be keeping a ‘travel blog,’ while we’re away, and I’ll try to get on once or twice a week to talk about what we’ve been up to. Deion’s been getting chest infections and colds quite a lot lately, so we are hoping a bit of sunshine will put an end to that, then I may even be able to talk Dave into moving somewhere hot permanently…wouldn’t that be good.

I’ll be back as soon as I’m over the jet lag!

Take care

Sally and Trojan xxx

Its that time of year again, the shops are filled with Christmas goodies, nine out of ten adverts are trying to sell us overpriced toys and games that our children had no idea they wanted until they saw the adverts and the shops are filled with mums practically wrestling each other to the ground for the latest Power Ranger action figures…

My friends used to tease me mercilessly. I am as over the top about Christmas as you can get. I buy gifts through the year and by October the gifts are bought, wrapped and tagged, the cards are written and I have detailed lists and schedules of every little thing I might possibly need come the big day. I have a pad that goes under the doormat, so the mere act of stepping on it causes the mat to shout ‘Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas’ we almost gave our long suffering postman a heart attack with this one. I have snowmen that sing, reindeers that dance and a surprisingly large array of Santa’s that do both. You can’t pick up a cup or piece of crockery that doesn’t have some sort of festive being staring back at you past November in my house. Our ‘night before Christmas’ book is the one I bought the year Aaron was born 17 years ago.

But this year, like the last two, my hearts not really in it.

Christmas is the time of year when we most miss those we’ve lost. It is undeniably the hardest thing to get through without them. It doesn’t help that Aarons birthday is the 5th December, but family Christmases’ are our thing. Or they were. And although we are still a family, it feels like someone’s missing so much sometimes I can hardly catch my breath.

I know we have three children to spoil and make sure they enjoy Christmas, and we do that, but it’s not the same. The mad noisy stuff, the glitter, the over the top decorations, was mine and Aaron’s thing in a way. He often got colds and had to have time off school in winter, so we were often holed up together making Christmassy things and trying to find a spare inch of house that wasn’t already glittered to within an inch of its life. He had his favourite Christmas films that we started watching daily from October onwards and as for the Christmas CD’s…need I say more.

Aaron was the one who dragged me to every shopping centre and garden centre within a thirty mile radius to meet every Father Christmas ever to don a false beard and padded tummy. I loved it all, the shopping, the carols, the school plays, fairs and parties, mine and Aaron’s Christmas socks, our Santa hats…

So it’s just different now. For all of us I know, but for me more than anyone. The first year after we lost Aaron we ran away, literally. We went to Orlando to spend Christmas with family there. Not because we thought we could escape Christmas, but because we had to escape the place we spent it with Aaron. Last year we stayed home but I thought my heart was going to break on Christmas morning as I walked past his closed bedroom door.

So this year, we’re doing a bit of both, we’re taking the kids away to Orlando to visit family, and we come back on boxing day. We’ll still have the tree and family get together in both places, and we’ll just have to try and accept that Aaron is with us in a different way.

It is only our third Christmas without Aaron, so we expect it to be hard. But I can’t imagine a Christmas, in all the years to come where there’s not a physical pain, a longing so great it’s hard to imagine looking forward to it ever again.

Deep down, I know this is not what Aaron would want, I know he would want us to be happy, play and laugh, and I really try. On an every day basis, that does work, even if sometimes I’m just putting a brave face on it. But that brave face is harder to maintain over the time when we should be celebrating his birthday and Christmas together.

So we are taking it a Christmas at a time, hoping for a time when the smiles come easier, but also dreading it because in a way I am terrified it might lessen the connection I feel with my Christmas angel.

Sally xxx