Day 24 - Honour

There are a great many ways to celebrate the gift of honour or honouring.  I decided that I wanted to focus, today on this day before Christmas, on the ways that we honour Cole at Christmas.  I have already shared one way we honour Cole and that is his garden...here's a glimpse and I also posted just a few weeks back of pictures of Cole's stone in candle light.  Yesterday I shared a story about one of those wonderful stones from his garden.
But Christmas is different.  It is so much fresher for me during the holidays.  The day we lost him fell 12 days before Christmas (not the 12 days of Christmas that I ever want to focus on).  I remember driving home from our follow up appointment a week after surgery.  I thought it was the last time I would be at Mt. Sinai (how wrong I was) and though I was filled with sadness at what was lost, I was also filled with joy at the news that Cameron was        
looking very healthy, had a good prognosis.  This mixed sense of feelings, those bittersweet moments were hard and this one left me with a need.  A need to find something to put on our tree in memory of our sweet little angel.  I called my mom to tell her our good news and asked her to find something for us.  Little did I know how hard it would be and how many years I would dedicate to this project and how many people would contribute.  
It would seem that boy angels don't exist...no where could we find a boy tree topper or a boy angel ornament.  We took on a project to put Cole on our tree and this is what we have so far....

A tree topper angel holding a baby boy... just as the angels will hold my baby boy until we are together again.  

Over the years I have had a few sweet friends who have also helped us honour our little boy... 

 Two ornaments from friends. The angels are self explanatory.
The ball has a feather in it and reads
A feather from an angel
Is one we rarely see
But this one is quite different
And as special as can be
This Feather is a reminder
Of a special persons love
Who is now your guardian Angel
Watching and protecting from above

This was the ornament I gave Geoff our first Christmas with Cameron and without Cole...it is hard to consider the first year that he left us as our first Christmas without him since he would not have been here either way. The ornament reads 'Snowflakes are angel kisses from heaven'

Last year I organized an ornament exchange with some other TTTS moms who had lost one of their twins. This was my ornament from my friend Angy

This is the one I got this year from my Canadian TTTS mommy friend, Dianna.

My husband also gave me an ornament our first Christmas without Cole... Just so absolutely perfect for Cole's mommy...

And this page of tributes to honour Cole would not be complete without showing another gift that I received to honour both my boys and their connection.  It's called 'Two Together'...so perfect that a wonderful friend AND a sweet sister in law both gave me these.  I have one set out in our dining room and the other sits with Cole's ashes.