Remembering a Baby at Christmas

The festive season is now behind us for another year

Last Christmas I hated Christmas

This year it was rather wonderful

It was slow and gentle

Full of love

Made of meaning

And littered with memories

Laced with hope

The reason I can say that is because we have found our ways

Of including Tilda in our day

In all our festivities

She is woven into the fabric of our celebrations

She is with us, in our hearts, always

It will never be like having her here

Our family days will always be tinged with sadness

She will always be missing

But her inclusion in all we do is natural to us now

It just is

She just is

Baby Tilda was, is and always will be, one of us

One of our family

I think we have started traditions now that will continue for always

In her memory

In her name

This is how we remember our baby at Christmas

I hope it will help you to remember yours

At Christmas and always

At the start of advent we place our star at the top of our house

It can be seen for miles around

Shining out above our village

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We made the star with Tilda on her first and only Christmas

She adored playing with the lights as Daddy made the star

It is our Baby Tilda star

Tilda lights up Christmas

It goes up on the 2nd December

And shines brightly until the 6th January

It then burns again on the 2nd of Feb

The anniversary of the day that she died

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Each December I buy a new light for Baby Tilda’s memory garden

This year I added a little polar bear

Her garden looks beautiful at Christmas time

This year we also added a fabulous net of lights from The LED Hut

They made the fence magical and we could see them shine from our breakfast and tea table

They lit up the baubles and stars that we hung in the crab apple tree

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When we do treasure hunts for Christmas and Easter and birthday parties

We always hide things in Tilda’s garden for the children to find

It is our way of including her in the game

When we put up our tree each year

I have always bought each child a new decoration of their own

The plan is that when they leave home they will have a box of special decorations to take with them

So there own Christmas tree will be full of memories

Just like our family one

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As well as buying decorations for our living children

I also buy one for our baby in the sky

This year Tilda was lucky enough to collect a few

Some sent by family and friends

One gifted by My 1st Years

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This beautiful glass bauble

Contains a tiny glass angel

The bauble can be etched with a personalisation

We chose ‘Our Angel Baby Tilda’

It looked beautiful on our rainbow star tree

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I cannot wait to get it out again next year

The bauble would make a wonderful gift for any family

Either celebrating a first

Or missing a last

It comes beautifully packaged and presented in a gift box

It really would make a very special present

To show someone you are thinking of them at Christmas time

rainbow tree 2

On Christmas Eve

As darkness falls

On Christmas Eve

We go outside

And light sparklers

As we wave them in the air

We shout to the skies

Merry Christmas Baby Tilda!

tilda sparklers

On Christmas Day we light her candles

And we blow bubble kisses up to the sky

I was so proud of Esther this year

She took her pot of bubbles to Granny’s

And asked to go out and blow them

Before we opened our presents

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This year Esther and William each had a Tilda present in their stocking

8am

They had bought her a present too

tilda stars

And we had another special decoration added to our tree

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This year I made a Tilda snow globe on Photobox

It was so quick and easy to do

And was a fun festive way

To have her photo on display

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Writing this post is making me so sad

It has become so normal to include her in this way

When I plan anything

An event, occasion, holiday, day out

I think how Tilda can be included too

She is my daughter

As much as the others

She is my child

And I want her to be by my side

In my arms

In my life

Instead I carry her only in my heart

And in momentos in and around our home

It is so sad

But what else can I do?

What else am I supposed to do?

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This is how we remember our angel at Christmas

How do you remember yours?

We were sent the lights, snow globe and personalised bauble to feature on this blog

5 thoughts on “Remembering a Baby at Christmas

  1. She was such a beautiful baby. So full of smiles and hugs and love. So full of life. It will never make any sense. It is beautiful how much a part of your lives she still is, and will always be. Lots of hugs, Jennie xxx

  2. Hello lovely, this post is beautiful – and in every way Jenny. I love the photos. I love the memories you’ve created and continue to create, Matilda’s garden, all the traditions you keep and hold dear, and, the way you include your baby to the point now that Esther is putting her to the fore like that.
    I think the idea of giving the baubles you collect through the years for the children, to them when they leave home is rather wonderful. (And I may have to pinch that?! – I too, have always bought the GraceFaith girls a christmas tree decoration each year).
    Lastly, the post bought a tear to my eye, that any parent ought to have to go through this.
    Thinking of you. Much love. xxx

  3. We remember our baby Morgan with a glass angel that we got for the first Christmas without him and gets hung on the tree every year. This was our third year and I still feel we haven’t found our way yet so reading your post has put a few thoughts in my head of what and how we can do this. His surviving twin brother turned 4 last weekend so this time of year is made all the more poinient and all the more harder.

    It’s lovely when others remember what happened too. As well as a birthday present for our son, a friend of mine also gave us a candle to light in memory of his brother. Such a simple but thoughtful touch.

    I hope your new Christmas traditions give strength to you and your family each year. x

  4. I meant to add that our twins were also born at 27 weeks having survived surgery at 20 weeks. We spent 13 1/2 weeks in SCBU with Lucas, having lost Morgan at 18 days old.

    (and please excuse the terrible spelling and uncorrected ‘poinient’ that should have been ‘poignant’!)

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