Three years ago I faced my first Christmas without my mom. She had passed away six months prior, so I was still in what I call my “year of firsts” – first celebration of my kids’ birthdays, first Thanksgiving, and now first Christmas. I will admit Thanksgiving wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be because we hadn’t spent it with her for the past two or three years. So this particular Thanksgiving, living happily in the land of denial, I was able to pretend all was okay. It wasn’t until a couple of days later, when we started decorating for Christmas, that reality and grief knocked me back…