My Christmas wish

In nine days it will be Christmas day so I thought I'd write a Christmas wish for myself.  As a First Nations person, Christmas does not bring fond memories of the past instead it's a hard time to get through these days.  I'm born in January close to the new year which is also a hard time of year for me.  Tragically, the story goes that since I was six years old there were no adults to care for me around Christmas time.  The story of my people and the Residential School caused a hard time for adults in my community so drinking alcohol was a common thing.  The sad part of it was that the drinking continued for days and even weeks.  So I was sad a lot.  I felt alone a lot.  This happened every year, I only started recalling it when I was six.  This is why Christmas is so difficult for me.  Today, my community and family is still the same -nothing has changed.  So it's hard to feel a sense of togetherness at this time of year.  It's not that I'm not grateful for my life today it's just I wished that for once there didn't have to be alcohol involved.  That I could enjoy the company of my large family together and really feel the love that we share.  Instead of it being drowned by all the other negative emotions that others try to "drink away."  It's difficult.  You love your family and you're saddened by watching them avoid the real reasons they drink.  So my wish is that this time of year gets easier starting with this year, only because it feels like the hardest year already.  I hope to find solace in my pain so that Christmas does not plant a dark cloud over my head every year.  With age comes wisdom and I pray for a bit of that wisdom this Christmas.  So that my children will look back one day and remember their mother in a positive light and know that I did the best I knew how to make sure they had a better life.