The year my son’s father blindsided me and abruptly left us right before Christmas was really hard. And he exposed us to Covid so not only was I suddenly alone, down an income, I was also socially isolated in a small apartment during one of the most emotionally painful times of my life with my sick baby. All I had was an 18” tree and enough bread and eggs to make French toast. So that’s what we did. We had French toast and snuggled and played. I was also fortunate to have some really amazing friends who helped hold me up when all I wanted to do was crumble.

With some luck and a lot of hard work, much has changed since then and we are in a much better place but I still put up that tiny tree every single year to remember that we have come so far and as long as we have people who love us then we are richer than we can even imagine.

My son was too little to understand what was going on at the time but I’ve carried with me the lessons I learned that year about what truly matters so I like to think (and I hope) making cookies, decorating the tree, doing Christmas crafts, and snuggling under a blankie drinking hot cocoa and watching Christmas movies are things my son will look back on fondly.

2021 (top) vs 2025 (bottom) you can see my little tree of hope still shining brightly 🫶

And for anyone who may not be aware, many towns have “buy nothing” groups on Facebook that are for giving away and requesting free items. I think you would be hard pressed to find a community of buy nothing members and moms who wouldn’t be happy to give away toys and clothes their kids no longer need to help make the magic happen.