TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

I myself haven't completely bought into my sons thoughts these years on celebrating this holiday...mostly because like it or not this is our reality for now, that reality will change in due course, but for now since it is an inconceivable fact, that every year Christmas WILL arrive. Early in this journey, I determine I wanted to "keep" Christmas, even though it meant in a very limited capacity where our son was concerned. But that these years would pass, and memories would be made, and those memories of Christmas need not be marred by this experience, not if I could help it.

Every year Corey has been incarcerated my husband and I mail him all manner of cards, mostly humorous ones, as we begin to enter and pass through the Christmas season. From the first Christmas in prison, to the present one, I have made a practice of seeking out and mailing Corey gifts marking the Twelve Days of Christmas". Mail call is the single best part of any inmates day so I figured this would only add to his anticipation in those days. Being severly limited as to what I can send him, as inmates in our nations Federal Prisons, unlike those in State Prisons, are not allowed care packages, I can only send books, magazines, printed paper products in other words. And so I shower him with a 12 day barrage of special editions of various books, some humorous, some compelling reads (many from a wish list he updates for me) and those magazines that are mostly filled with articles and recaps of the past years events.

I recall an especially creative gift he was sent, years back, from a loving friend, a calendar wherein photos taken of them, taken in the prison visitation room, were photo shopped onto pictures of places elsewhere in the world...beaches, resorts, restaurents, etc...so he could imagine himself actually being at these places with the turning of every calendar page. I think that one gift has to have been one of his most memorable Christmas gifts received in these years.

Perhaps he's just humoring me when he acknowledges and comments on the things I send him, generally they elicit some joking response or witty comment, but I've come to believe he does find himself, if grudgingly, being drawn into the festivities. And so my work is done, my purpose achieved.


"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. " ~ Albert Schweitzer