Sometimes the holidays are not very merry...

In fact, sometimes they just plain suck.

I've had happy, cheerful blog posts sitting in draft folders for weeks now. I have pictures to post. Events to re-cap. Sweet children to brag on. I just can't bring myself to post on all that just yet. (But I will, and before December 31, because Lord knows my Type A self won't let me blog about 2014 happenings in 2015.)

I think I mentioned back in the spring, that holidays will happen, and we will make the best of them. We will still celebrate. We will still smile and laugh and share stories.

But when it all comes down to it, I just kind of don't want to.

I say all this coming off of a weekend filled with three wonderful Christmas parties and a (very entertaining) preschool Christmas performance. But this post has been floating around in my head for weeks, and then I started actually typing out this post last week while sitting in my grandmother's Hospice room.

Yes, Hospice room.

It's been a hell of a year, y'all.

We put on our Johnson Family Armor the week of Thanksgiving and said "All right, world. We're going in to the holidays. We've got this. It's gonna suck, but we will make it."

Then, my world came to a screeching halt last weekend when we admitted my sweet, precious grandmother to Hospice and started saying our goodbyes.

My armor fell off. Any chance I had of staying strong for my family and putting on a happy face for the sake of the season disappeared when I found myself holding my grandmother's hand and watching her take her final breaths.

All while Christmas carolers sang merrily in the hallways and garland adorned every doorway in every store.

I find myself doing a lot of things that I don't really want to do this holiday season. And also just forgetting about doing the usual holiday things because well, I just can't even.

Ultimately, it's what is best for the kids. And probably even us bigger kids. It's best to have normalcy. It's not fair to them to cheat them out of Christmas. And I truly don't plan to cheat them out of Christmas (because Lord knows I have a closet full of gifts that show no signs of cheating).

We did not do family photos this year. And while my family cheered, I just breathed a sigh of relief in not having to figure out outfits, pray for less-than-frigid weather, and bribe the children- all three of them- for genuine smiles.

And while I do like staring at a Christmas tree in my living room now, it took all my power just to go to the shed and get the ornaments out.

Lights went up outside yesterday. Put them up and half hour later, the middle strand went out. F- it. They are staying up like that.

Y'all, I rejoice in knowing my father-in-law and grandmother are spending this Christmas in heaven with our Lord and with all their family and friends who have passed before them. I promise. I genuinely rejoice.

But I am human. And I am fine with publically saying that, as a human- a selfish human, I just want my life back. I want my family back together again. I want my children to give Pops and Great Grandma a present in person and not just talk about how much we love and miss them and explain that heaven is forever and they will not see them on this earth again. That's NOT what we should be talking about this holiday season.

But we are talking about it. And my suit of armor is back on today. And we shall forge ahead through the next few weeks and into the New Year.

We will share memories and we will laugh and hug and smile. But we have two huge holes in our hearts this holiday season. And no gift from Target or Amazon will change that.

I continue to thank God for the many blessings he has given me and continues to give me. We have a phenomenal support system that continues to just amaze me. We have more people praying for us than I probably even realize. And for that, I am truly grateful.

I'm grateful. I'm blessed. But I am hurting.

But I am also loving. And breathing. And taking one day at a time. Because that's all I can do. It's all I need to do- for myself and for my family.

We will survive. We will make it through. We will rejoice.

And we will stare at that broken middle strand of lights and realize there is probably some symbolism in there somewhere.