A Gift for Mom! 🤍

Even 2020 Can’t Take Away the Love We Have in Our Hearts This Season

4 Minute Read

By Emily Solberg

It’s been hard to place my feelings lately. Until today, I didn’t know what to call it, this odd mix of rage and grief and hope and nostalgia and disappointment swirling around inside my head. But as I sat in my car this morning and Faith Hill’s “Where Are You Christmas” came on the radio and tears started streaming down my cheeks, I finally understood.

I’ve been mourning.

Mourning what the holidays were supposed to look like this year. Mourning the traditions I’ve been looking forward to and the experiences I was planning to share with the people I love.

Mourning the incredible brokenness of our country, and its people. Mourning how divided we are and how far apart we have grown, both literally and figuratively.

Mourning the ease and convenience with which we used to be able to come together. The control and certainty over our own plans and schedules that we took for granted.

Mourning the predictable and safe and consistent parts of our lives that have been flipped completely upside down.

Where are you Christmas
Why can’t I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can’t I hear music play

My world is changing
I’m rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too

I’m mourning the loss of the person I was just one short year ago. She feels like a stranger to me now. I’m mourning her confidence and assuredness. I’m mourning her faith and unwavering conviction that things always work out for the best.

Where are you Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know
I’m not the same one
See what the time’s done
Is that why you have let me go

We have lost so much this year—it has seemed insurmountable at times. It’s so difficult not to feel cheated, robbed.

It takes everything in me to keep my heart from hardening to stone and bitter resentment from spilling over.

But every once in a while, often when I least expect it, I’m reminded that the most important things can’t be taken away from us, no matter how the world feels like it’s crumbling around us or people continue to let us down.

Christmas is here
Everywhere, oh
Christmas is here
If you care, oh

If there is love in your heart and your mind
You will feel like Christmas all the time

There she is. Right when I need her. Stubborn and relentless and incorrigible and downright painful, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t always show up, even if it’s at the most inconvenient time, even if I happen to be gulping back big, ugly, racking sobs in the parking lot of the local library—

Hope.

Oh, I feel you Christmas
I know I’ve found you
You never fade away, oh
The joy of Christmas
Stays here inside us
Fills each and every heart with love

So if you need a moment to ugly-cry in your car this season while you blast Faith Hill and mourn everything that 2020 has taken from you, and mourn the holidays you had envisioned for your family, and mourn the expectations and desires and visions you have only just started to let go . . .

I hope you take it.

But then I hope you listen to that faint, gentle voice in the back of your mind—the one that’s gotten smaller and softer, but refused to leave you completely alone this whole year.

The one that finds a way to be heard, even at the moments you aren’t prepared to welcome it.

The voice that tells you what matters most will always be the love we hold in our hearts, and the love we pour into the people who matter.

And nothing—not even 2020—can take that away.

PS: Dear Holiday Season, We Need You This Year More Than Ever

Originally published on the author’s Facebook page.

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

Emily Solberg

Emily Solberg is a soldier, military spouse, mom of two, and fierce advocate of women supporting women. The goal of her writing is to help others feel less alone in their parenting journeys, and she isn’t afraid to share the hard parts of her own. You can find more from her over on Facebook and Instagram at Shower Arguments with Emily Solberg.

5 Things I’m Learning about 50

In: Living

When my dad turned 80, he—and we, by default—celebrated all year. My sister made a fantastic, larger-than-life sign of him posing in front of his friend’s antique car, with beautiful calligraphy that trumpeted, “Cheers to you, celebrating 80 years of life!” The sign welcomed his closest friends and family into a private room at a steakhouse, where we toasted his 80 years—and the grandkids toasted his steady presence in their lives. The sign moved from the swanky steakhouse to the second-floor banister in my parents’ house. When you walked in, it greeted you—a feel-good conversation starter and a reminder to...

Keep Reading

I’m Constantly Waiting for the Metaphorical Axe To Fall

In: Living

I knew people died. I just didn’t think it applied to us. Mortality met me in grade two with a punch to the gut when my teacher confirmed casually that, yes, everybody dies. What do you mean, everybody dies? I frantically thought, but kept my question to myself. Up until that moment, I had quietly believed my family was exempt from that fate. I thought death was a monster that only took other people and left my family alone. They say all panic has an origin story, and mine began shortly after that realization, fueled by a disconnected phone cord...

Keep Reading

The Apology You Deserve May Never Come

In: Living

“You have to accept that you will likely never get the apology you deserve.” When my therapist said those words, I felt everything at once-anger, resentment, heartbreak. It was as if the air had been pulled straight from my lungs. Because accepting that truth meant letting go of something I had been holding onto for a long time: the hope that one day, it would all be acknowledged. My family was deeply wronged. Not in a way that can be brushed off or easily forgotten, but in a way that cut to the core. There were lies wrapped in deception,...

Keep Reading

To the Little Girl With Pink Flowers on Her Shoes and Courage in Her Heart

In: Living

To the little girl with pink flowers on her white shoes and lacy fold-down socks, down and ready, tee ball glove in hand, teeth marks worn into the top. The Pittsburgh Pirates hat from Uncle Dave, a sign of camaraderie. A part of something bigger than herself. A too-long, locally sponsored t-shirt, tied up with a ponytail. Jean shorts and a belt. The type of ordinary only childhood can be. When ordinary is more than enough. No one can tell in this picture that you were scared. That you didn’t feel ready. That behind that tiny-toothed grin you were holding...

Keep Reading

Keep Searching for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

In: Living

I don’t know about you, but finding a good pair of jeans has always felt like a process to me. These are too tight. Those are too loose. They fit my thighs but bunch at my hips. The dreaded waist gap. Too short—high waters. Too long, and suddenly you can’t find your legs. Before you know it, you’re ordering your fourth pair and eyeing a fifth. A woman on a mission. And still, as I stand there looking in the mirror at everything that doesn’t quite work, I just know there is a perfect pair out there for me. Somewhere....

Keep Reading

Why I Had My Benign Breast Lumps Removed

In: Living

My journey with monitoring benign breast lumps began in July of 2020 when my OB-GYN found a lump. I was sent home with an ultrasound referral. I called immediately after I got home and asked for the soonest appointment at any location. I had a young son, and was absolutely terrified. They got me in at the end of the week. My husband was on vacation that week, and what should have been an enjoyable family time was plagued with worry. At the ultrasound appointment, they saw two small lumps. I was told these were “likely benign” and was given...

Keep Reading

Repotting Myself: What My One‑Armed Grandpa Taught Me About Growing Anyway

In: Grief, Living

Black and white photo of older man in garden

I was never meant to be a plant person. I’m the woman who can kill a succulent on the way home from the store. Once, a fern sighed in my direction and gave up. That is my spiritual gift. My grandpa Dominic would have laughed—hard. He loved to laugh. And sing hymns passionately in Italian. He was an Italian immigrant who lost his arm working in a mill, and still, he woke up every morning and dressed like dignity itself. He shopped for my grandma. He fixed what was broken. And he tended the biggest, happiest garden you’ve ever seen....

Keep Reading

Farewell To the Bus Stop Moms

In: Friendship

It seems like just yesterday I was writing a piece about my last baby going off to kindergarten. I poured my heart out into words about how she was going to find her place in the world, and how I was going to find a new sense of belonging. I wrote, “I was able to find a bit of ‘me’ again. She has barely left my side in almost six years, so her absence is still fresh and foreign. But I know her jubilant little self will be just fine. And just like that, she’s on her way. And so...

Keep Reading

May is Maternal Mental Health Month, and So Many Moms Are Quietly Drowning

In: Living

I’ve given birth to four beautiful boys and lived through four postpartum experiences. Each one has been different, yet there are familiar threads that run through them all. In the first couple of weeks after my first baby was born, I felt carefree…until that bubble was popped. My newborn got sick and was admitted to the PICU at a children’s hospital 30 minutes from our home. At one point, doctors mentioned the possibility of meningitis, but after many tests and a several-day admission, we were sent home. When we were discharged, a doctor left me with these words, “It’s your...

Keep Reading

The Hard Truth about Friendship in Your 40s

In: Friendship

No one can really prepare you for how much friendships change in your 40s. We expect life shifts—kids grow, schedules fill, jobs demand more, and aging parents need us in new ways. Time becomes tighter, priorities change, and naturally, friendships have to adjust. That part makes sense, right? But what doesn’t get talked about enough is the quiet, hard shift, the one where it’s not just time or distance creating friendship gaps, but something deeper. What happens when you look around your “table” and realize it no longer feels like a safe place to land? What happens when you start...

Keep Reading

Please Don't Tell Me How To Parent My Child

Kids

Please Don't Tell Me How To Parent My Child

Jesus is Our Only Hope

Faith

Even 2020 Can’t Take Away the Love We Have in Our Hearts This Season

Mourning the ease and convenience with which we used to be able to come together. The control and certainty over our own plans and schedules that we took for granted.

It takes everything in me to keep my heart from hardening to stone and bitter resentment from spilling over.

Hope.

But then I hope you listen to that faint, gentle voice in the back of your mind—the one that’s gotten smaller and softer, but refused to leave you completely alone this whole year.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Emily Solberg

5 Things I’m Learning about 50

I’m Constantly Waiting for the Metaphorical Axe To Fall

The Apology You Deserve May Never Come

To the Little Girl With Pink Flowers on Her Shoes and Courage in Her Heart

Keep Searching for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

Why I Had My Benign Breast Lumps Removed

Repotting Myself: What My One‑Armed Grandpa Taught Me About Growing Anyway

Farewell To the Bus Stop Moms

May is Maternal Mental Health Month, and So Many Moms Are Quietly Drowning

The Hard Truth about Friendship in Your 40s

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

Even 2020 Can’t Take Away the Love We Have in Our Hearts This Season

Mourning the ease and convenience with which we used to be able to come together. The control and certainty over our own plans and schedules that we took for granted.

It takes everything in me to keep my heart from hardening to stone and bitter resentment from spilling over.

Hope.

But then I hope you listen to that faint, gentle voice in the back of your mind—the one that’s gotten smaller and softer, but refused to leave you completely alone this whole year.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

5 Things I’m Learning about 50

I’m Constantly Waiting for the Metaphorical Axe To Fall

The Apology You Deserve May Never Come

To the Little Girl With Pink Flowers on Her Shoes and Courage in Her Heart

Keep Searching for the Perfect Pair of Jeans

Why I Had My Benign Breast Lumps Removed

Repotting Myself: What My One‑Armed Grandpa Taught Me About Growing Anyway

Farewell To the Bus Stop Moms

May is Maternal Mental Health Month, and So Many Moms Are Quietly Drowning

The Hard Truth about Friendship in Your 40s

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like