Deck the Holly
All Hail the Queen of Christmas!
My glorious Holly was made for a crown, and her custom Christmas crown is my absolute favorite! This year’s outfit also features a bandana, with a Christmas cookies and holly print fabric that I picked out. We’ve since added a holly print collar, which was the perfect Secret Santa gift, so I’ll probably be doing even more photos. But here we have one version of the 2020 #decktheholly look.
Although Holly recently turned six, and has always had her festive name, I only started making a big deal of her festive holiday attire last year. In the earliest years, I just wasn’t that crazy. Holly didn’t have stacks and piles of custom collars, tags, and bandanas. That was back when I seriously thought she only needed one collar, and that she’d wear that one collar everywhere she went until it fell off. Her first custom collar purchase was agonizing for me, because I was still convinced it would be the one and only thing she wore every day for years to come.
And in 2017, I didn’t want anything to do with Christmas, or holidays, or anything joyful if I could help it. We had six deaths in our family in a twelve-month span, technically from mid-December of 2016 to mid-December of 2017, but we’ve always thrown the blame entirely on 2017 for sake of simplicity. For a year so horrible, it was the least mercy we could grant ourselves.
We lost my aunt in December, my father in January, my father-in-law in April, my mother-in-law in June, and my maternal grandmother the very next day. And to cap the year off, we lost my uncle in December of 2017. Most of these relationships were complicated by emotional baggage, distance, guilt and/or regret. On top of that, my poor mother lost her sister, mother, brother, and the father of her children, so I felt horrible for her. My husband lost his parents within six weeks of one another, and was left with no immediate family at all, since his sister had died at only thirty-one. I felt horrible for him, too. And I felt horrible for not feeling horrible, in those moments when the sunshine crept through into my days.
After surviving all that, I thought for sure that Christmas in 2018 would be different. It would be normal again! I looked forward to feeling anything like normal after all that. Yet, when November rolled around, and the weather finally started to cool…nothing. I didn’t want anything to do with celebrating. I didn’t want a pumpkin spice latte, or a stroll through the fall décor at Target. I didn’t want a harvest wreath, or Thanksgiving dinner.
I didn’t feel anything. And when November gave way to December, still nothing. I tried having a peppermint mocha and cruising through the mall, freshly bedecked with Christmas lights. I tried having a candlelit bath with my favorite Christmas candles and my favorite carols.
Nothing felt like Christmas.
I was so disappointed. I felt like I had failed in my recovery, like the grief had permanently won. I honestly worried that my love of Christmas had truly died, along with everyone else in 2017.
So, when somewhere in the fall of 2019, I had the idea to dress my beautiful girl up in all the Christmas things for the first time, it was a lot more than crazy dog mom taking over. It was a sign of recovery. And I was terrified to even think it too loudly, for fear that the grief would sneak back in and steal this little joy from me. So I tucked it away for a little while, and held onto it. I whispered it to Holly, but only to her. She smiled, like she always does, and kept my secret safe.
Her Christmas photos from 2019, with her decked out in a Christmas floral bandana, a plaid collar, and pinecones and berries, still make me tear up a little. Seeing her like the little holiday miracle she is for the first time, and for the millionth time, warms my heart. She is my Christmas. She is my angel. She is my heart.
Hopefully, no matter what 2020 has dealt to you, you find moments of joy and celebration. Even if it’s something as simple as an adorable dog in a Christmas crown, or a Christmas cookie bandana. Small joys matter. Sometimes they matter the most of all.
Merry Christmas, from our house to yours!
