A different way to handle the first holiday after placement

Honestly, everyone told me to avoid anything about my son's first Christmas. I felt like I had to hide. So I went against that and bought a small ornament with his birth month on it. I hung it on my tree in my apartment in Tacoma. It let me feel connected without it being a big, sad thing. Has anyone else tried a small, quiet thing like that instead of trying to block it all out?

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3 Comments

finley_lee5mo ago

My quiet thing is just stealing @dylanh81's soup breakdown idea.

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vera2925mo ago

Let you feel connected without it being a big, sad thing" is where I see it differently. For me, trying to make it a small thing just made the sadness feel bigger, like I was hiding it in plain sight. I had to block out the whole day last year, just movies and takeout, because any reminder was a trigger. A quiet symbol would have been a constant, quiet hurt.

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dylanh815mo ago

My version of a quiet symbol is just forgetting the date entirely and then having a random breakdown in the grocery store over canned soup. Real subtle, real classy.

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