Christmas Season 2000 Our last Christmas with Noah

I remember our last Christmas with Noah so vividly.  He was so excited to see daddy bring the Christmas tree in the house.  Noah was right there with Stephen and Brody, trying to help in any way he could.  Noah didn't know what to do, but he just imitated everything Brody was doing in trying to help daddy to hurry up and put the tree up.  He couldn't contain his excitement and his eyes filled with wonder.  But he always seemed to be able to smile at the camera for me!

Noah helping daddy and Brody set up the tree.

When the tree was set up in its stand, Noah just stared at it, touching the needles.  Then, the lights were getting put up by Stephen.  Noah stood there staring it, mesmerized by the twinkling.  Time for decorations!!  And who was there taking centre stage??  Noah, of course.  He would watch us place an ornament on the tree and with instructions from Stephen, Mikhayla, Brody, and myself, he gathered up an ornament and tried it out for himself.  He would take the ornament and carefully place it on the tree, stand back and look at it.

Then he would see Mikhayla and Brody continue decorating and he would go find another ornament and put that one on the tree, just as careful as the first.  Noah continued placing the decorations on the tree until they were all on.  How proud he was to help with the decorating.  After the tree was finished, he stared at it, his face full of love, wonder, excitement and joy.  Noah was 14 months old, but the excitement from Mikhayla and Brody rubbed off on him.  When Mikhayla and Brody would start to get really excited and anxious, Noah did too!  It was so wonderful to have the three of them running around like animals anticipating the wonder of Christmas.  And when it was quiet, you would see the three of them laying beside the tree, whispering, talking, trying to hold in their giddiness.

Placing decorations on the tree.

Christmas morning was so wonderful.  We don't have any pictures of that day, but we do have it on video - another tradition of ours is to set up the camcorder and just record the chaos that happens with opening presents Christmas morning.  As usual, we got our morning wake up call and we brought Noah down to find out what Santa left in his stocking.  Noah kept pulling things out, taking time to look at everything, open everything and not forgetting to eat his candies.  And then it was time to open presents.  I remember Santa gave Noah some slippers in the shape of a bear.  When Noah opened it up, he grabbed them and gave them a big hug.  It was so adorable.  I will never forget that.  Noah would open a present and then go pull a soother out of one of the twins' mouth, and then run back and open another present.  The joy and excitement in Noah's face was so mesmerizing.  I'm sure there was probably a little confusion as to what was going on, but it was so wonderful. To me, that is what Christmas is about.  To see your kids so happy and full of wonderment.  I am so thankful I have other children to continue seeing that sparkle in their eye, like Noah did.  I miss Noah's sparkle, so terribly much.  It breaks my heart that I only had him with us for two years.

This will be one of our Christmases I will never forget.  Now, we had to make some changes.  Our Christmases will never be the same so we decided to do things for ourselves to help us in continuing our celebration of Christmas without Noah here on earth.

Our last Christmas tree with Noah on earth.

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