Regarding Christmas, at most churches there are Christmas Gift Trees or little old ladies who will get a gift for the children and teenagers. Let them know now before it’s too late! It may hurt your pride to ask for help, but believe me, half the people I know in town have had to go to the food pantry or go to the churches for gifts for the kids.

Instead of a tree, get a table tree. You can literally cut a small sapling by the side of the road. Then you set it up with lights.

Tell the boys the truth about finances and say this year we’ll be doing something different. Then, work at a soup kitchen, sing carols, and go to Christmas Eve services. Or, go to a community sponsored Christmas event or to someone else’s house for Christmas and bring a small something for a hostess gift. Bake with the ingredients already in your house.

Deal with the emotional stuff later, let’s just get through Christmas!

Dear Steve,
Bad Steve, bad bad bad. You should be better. You should be focusing on good stuff, you should be participating in life, you should be positive. Now I’ve reprimanded you like you are doing to yourself. Do you feel better. Do you need some type if punishment for feeling bad? Read that last sentence again, my friend. You should feel bad, you are in a bad situation in a very uneasy part of your life. You have a right to feel a bit screwed and jealous. I do. My life sucks right now. But it was only when I acknowledged that I had a right to feel the way I do that I found the power within myself to start moving forward again. It’s slow going. Hard to get out of bed most days, and I feel alone surrounded by people I feel have it better than I do. But I own those feelings. They are mine now and no one can judge them, not even me. And when the time comes that your spirit is ready to get on with it, it will. Until then, just keep saying “I’m a happy person” over and over in the mirror. No it won’t make you happy, but it may make you eventually laugh at it’s absurdity!