Since my parents split up a long, long time ago, Christmas Eve has been the time we celebrate with Mom. This is turkey night with all the trimmings. This is brie and crackers, veggies and dip, icy squares and clementines. And Asti, if we remember. This is laughter and good food and family.

This is our second Christmas without Mom. We spent last year’s in an ice storm, thankful for the return of power and eating Swiss Chalet. The storm was so out of the ordinary and so challenging for so many that we were filled with a deep gratitude for the simple gifts of being safe, warm and together.

This year we’re faced with how to go on celebrating without Mom. What feels like “our way” now? How do we honour our memories and traditions and also acknowledge that things have changed?

When I looked through Christmas pictures for this post, I realized that hough my image of Christmas Eve is stable for all of these years, in fact, it’s been so different so many times.

We’ve ordered Chinese Food and celebrated at Mom’s.

We’ve eaten dinner sitting on the floor in one of my first and favourite apartments. That year, Shannon created our Christmas Tree by drawing it on a single sheet of paper. We taped it to the wall and put the presents below.

So we’ve had paper trees and since then small trees and tall trees, wide trees and white trees.

We’ve had rain and we’ve had snow.

We’ve celebrated on the 20th floor and in basements.

We’ve celebrated at Shannon’s and we’ve celebrated at mine and now at ours.

We’ve had raucous celebrations and quiet ones.

We’ve gone out and we’ve stayed in.

We’ve been with many configurations of our loved ones.

The truth is that many things have varied when it comes to Christmas Eve.

The only real constant?

Love.

And that, we still have.