Like it or not, the Holiday season has arrived. 

I can do without the shopping and the malls. 

But there are two traditions that make my holiday, and that I look forward to every year.

First, since the kids were little, we made ornaments to honor our pets that had passed away. Many of you know about this tradition because we made it part of Kindred Spirits. Each year the we made an ornament for any pet that we had lost.

We have a gumdrop mouse

A rat ornament (we found one)

A beagle named Pandy on what looks like a toboggan

A baby's first Christmas frame with a picture of Homer our cat

A German Shephard ornament with Hari written on it with Sharpie

A snowflake with a picture of one of our twin cats Whirlagig

and others...

The kids would call dibs on hanging the ornaments as soon as we took out the boxes. Even when they were teens and preteens and a little too cool for Christmas they rushed to the boxes to find and hang their favorites. 

When we first opened Kindred Spirits, I sent out letters to each person who had lost a pet and invited them to hang an ornament on our practice tree. We had a ceremony the first two years where we told stories about the pets and hung our ornaments. Each person's comfort with sharing such an intimate loss with strangers varied, but I have to say that in those first two years I think many friendships were made as people helped each other through hanging their ornament. 

On the third year, I asked that people come in whenever they wanted to hang their ornaments. I have to admit I was a bit relieved to not cry for 3 hours the weekend after Thanksgiving. 

Now each year I take out the ornaments from the previous years and hang them around the waiting area, on the wooden beams and doorways. Mary and I did that yesterday. All in all, we hung 107 ornaments, and kept the tree open for those who have lost a pet this year to decorate between now and December 25th. 

I am reminded that each ornament represents a unique pet, a unique relationship.

I hung Turi the cat with the sardine can ornament

I hung Riley Grace

I hung Snowflake the bunny

Hopefully you didn't have to get a letter this year. But if you did, know that if you make an ornament to honor your pet, it will become part of our holiday honoring practice.

The second tradition that I look forward to each holiday season is writing a letter to each of those I love to hang in the Christmas tree. This also started when my kids were little. Somewhere around 6 and 8 years old I started writing them a letter about how important they were to me and hid it in the tree. After a few years they always left the letter for last and always put aside everything else while they read the letter. Every year I found that I looked forward to writing the letters and honoring those relationships.
I still write the letters.

 My team is my family as well now.

and I write them to the kids, my mother, special people in my life.

I hope that it means as much to them as it does to me.

If you have been dreading the holidays, start a tradition that means something to you.

It doesn't have to be as heavy as mine, but it does have to be as meaningful.

You could dress your Mastiff like a reindeer on Christmas Eve....

Just sayin'