Celine Dion Says First Christmas Without Rene Angelil Will Be 'Bittersweet'

Celine Dion will be spending the holiday season without her late husband Rene Angelil for the first time since his death and she’s opening up about staying strong.

The 48-year-old singer lost her husband right after the holidays earlier this year.

“I cannot just live on like, ‘I lost my husband, my children have no father,’” Celine said in a new interview with Page Six. “I have to stand tall and strong because this is my way of living: Stand tall, be positive, pick your battles, do the best you can and to live for today, not for tomorrow, for today, and know nothing is perfect, not everything you want will happen.”

Celine and her three kids – 15-year-old Rene-Charles and six-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy – will go skiing in Montana this year to keep up their family traidition.

Click inside to read what else Celine Dion said in the interview…

“He put some something magic into that snow, into those mountains, and every time we go down, I go down with him,” she said of the trip to Big Sky. “My children go down thinking about him. Every time I take the lift to go up, I feel closer to him.”

Celine also talked about it being nearly a year since Rene passed away.

“I can’t believe it’s going to be a year that my husband passed. I don’t know when Santa Claus is coming, but if I had a wish to make this year, can you just tell him to take his time? I’m not ready! It’s kind of a bittersweet moment and at the same time we need to really make the holidays really happy,” she said. “I feel thankful that he doesn’t suffer and he doesn’t have to worry because we got him. He got us and the spirit of the holidays will get us together again … We’re going to ski again all together and he will be there with us.”