Christmas layout

16/12/2009 by UKMA 9 Comments

Well, this week has been a bit manic, to say the least. Between UKS sponsorship stuff, Christmas stuff, DD’s Ice Show stuff (7 hours yesterday, including 2 hours stuck on the M4 behind an accident) and other school stuff (3 hours yesterday) updating my blog has slipped to the bottom of the list! I have to assume it is much the same for most people. But I thought I would add a Christmas layout today, one that was in SI last year and which is still a favourite.

We had a son in 1991 who died shortly after birth due to a heart defect. It was a sad time for us, as anyone who has experienced something like it will know, and we still deal with that great sadness now 19 years later at a few expected times of the year. Looking at DS at nearly 17 tends to make us wonder what our other son might have been like had he lived.

I remember at the time I wrote a couple of very long posts on a pre-cursor to forums, the misc.kids news group.

Bizarrely, I had a look, purely on a whim, and they can still be found in an archive (somewhat scary to think that anything you put on the web could still be found so many years  later). They make painful reading, given that they were written in the throes of early stage grief. If you are feeling curious you can find them here and here but there are pretty detailed and pretty raw, so honestly, don’t click on the links unless you are mentally prepared.  Seems I am still warning people not to read them – I did that when I wrote them as well. All these years later, I thought I might not be affected, at least not seriously, by re-reading those posts but in fact I have tears streaming down my face.

One of the traditions we began that first Christmas was to buy a special heart shaped ornament every year for our Christmas tree.  Finally, only last year, I documented that tradition in a layout:

Only a few of my favourite ones – the calendar is a flap that opens up to reveal a very short version of the story (more of a “Just the facts, Ma’m” version). The hearts were all printed then cut out and some pop-dotted.  The greenery is a few bits of an old Christmas tree.  I’m looking for this year’s heart every time I see ornaments.

A bit of a downer, this one so I suspect it’s a good thing not too many people actually read my blog  {smile}