I have always been a bit ambivalent about Christmas, but never more so than last year. It was the first time in over 33 years that Bill and I would not have a parent living with us and would be on our own. My mother-in-law had died the previous April and my own mother was in a nursing home, too ill to join the celebrations at home. Anyone who has lost a close family member knows the first Christmas after your loss is weird and painful. Dear familiar faces are always missed but never more so than at Christmas, the time when we are all supposed to be joyous and happy together in a family group.

As we made tentative plans our daughter Karen and her husband Barry asked us to go to them for Christmas. It turned out they meant us to stay with them on Christmas Eve, and then join in the fun when our granddaughter Maddy opened her presents, as well as the traditional Christmas lunch and festivities.

I was taken aback. Always our parents and in-laws came to our house on Christmas Eve and stayed until late Christmas night. We then went to them on Boxing Day. As we discussed the arrangement further I realised that some things were to remain unchanged. I was still going to cook the traditional large joint of belly pork with homemade stuffing for Christmas Eve consumption with fresh bread and pickles. Supper was always eaten after attending an early evening Christmas communion as a family, followed by the reading of familiar poetry for children - The Night Before Christmas. All this was to be normal.

As usual Christmas Eve came too quickly. Strange - it's always on 24 December, but so many of us are surprised when the day actually comes. The presents wrapped, and the cards have all been sent, and all the food and drink required to feed an army of fifty for a fortnight is stockpiled around the house. At six o'clock we bundled out of the house and met our family in Church and then I saw the number who were coming, Karen, Barry and Maddy of course; but also Barry's mum, his sister, her husband and their daughter Abbie.

After the service everyone exchanged greetings and then our larger family came back to our house where the traditional pork was eaten with great relish. With the two little ones running around and the parents trying to calm them down it seemed like old times. Suddenly they were all gone as hurriedly as they arrived and we were alone again. Too busy to think too much about what was happening, we packed the car with Christmas presents for the following day and attended to the minutiae involved in leaving a house overnight in winter.

As we started off I began to consider the changes and I could feel the tears that had been threatening for so long starting to fill my eyes. We had never in our 40 years of married life spent Christmas other than as responsible for all the Christmas celebrations. This year was going to be so different. Our family had changed irrevocably. The old times had gone, never to come again. The threatened tears coursed silently down by cheeks and I felt heart-broken. As we drove along I head a voice say quietly in my head that actually our family wasnt shrinking but changing.
True, precious parents were gone, but through Karen's marriage I had found a new friend in Barry's mother; Karen had a sister and brother-in-law she treasured and they made us so welcome in their own circle. Best of all there were two little children, who were dearly loved, soon to be joined by a third baby in the new year.

This after all was what Christmas was about; a love came to save us in the shape of the Christ child, and love is made to extend and encompass us all. As we continued silently on I felt a fission of excitement that was child-like. Yes, this Christmas was going to be different, but if we accepted what we were being tenderly offered it could be good... and do you know what? It was.

Zoe Powell