I ordered a bûche de noel for Christmas Eve dessert with Matt’s family. Normally I make something fancy but my heart just wasn’t in it this year, so I decided to make it easy on myself. I was so pleased picking up the bakery box the morning of–until I got home and saw the 16″ log had cracked in transit: 
Not gonna lie, that was the nadir of the season for me. My attempt at a new tradition didn’t work; nothing worked; Mom wasn’t here; she was never going to be here again; why bother with any of it?
I just walked away and was sad for the day until about 15 minutes before we left for dinner. Then I thought, “I bet I can push this together and smear some frosting over it,” and reader, it worked:
As a metaphor for the first holiday season without Mom, I’ll take it.We were broken but we pulled it together. And we filled the cracks with frosting.