Traditions

The other night as I stood alone in our kitchen washing dishes and listening to music on Jango Radio, an old familiar song began to play quietly.  The lyrics and music of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" came floating out of the speakers of my computer and began to quietly fill my heart with a little bit of nostalgia.

As Bill Crosby was singing, "I'll be home for Christmas / you can plan on me / please have snow and mistletoe / and presents under the tree",  I felt myself go back in time to my childhood.  I remembered how exciting and magical my parents always made Christmas for my brothers and I.  I recalled how my mom (who never made store-bought cookies) would buy chocolate chip cookie dough and would bake cookies for us to eat as we decorated the Christmas tree and house.  We'd have the old Christmas songs blaring on the stereo and we'd all sing and eat cookies until late in the night.  We'd go to bed, with achy bellies, and hearts and spirits full.  I recounted how on Christmas Eve my brothers and I would beg to open "just one gift" and how we'd all three sleep in the same bed.  (We didn't do much sleeping as every sound we heard was surely Santa and his reindeer landing on our roof!)  I remember how we'd stand at the top of the stairs at 7:00AM sharp as we weren't allowed to wake our parents before then (although we'd been awake for a long time before).  Devin, Dalton, and I would count until three and then shout to my parents, "CAN WE COME DOWN YET?".  We'd hear our parents shuffling and moving around, we'd hear them ooooo-ing and ahhhh-ing, and after what seemed like forever, they'd tell us we could come down.  We'd go rushing down the stairs to see our Christmas goodies.   The good times.

The song continued, "Christmas Eve will find me / where the love light gleams / I'll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams", and I realized that in all the years of singing this song, I'd never really paid much attention to the words or what they meant.  This year, the song takes on a whole new meaning.  I find myself this Christmas far from home, family, and many things and people who are dear to me.  I find myself in a time of changing traditions and transition.  My heart now lies in two very distinct places.  No matter where the body that contains this heart is, it always seem to long for the other place.  I can truly understand the words to this song this year, I may not be able to physically be home for Christmas, but I'm there in my heart and spirit.  As I began making new traditions for my girls and our little family, my heart will always long to go back "home" for Christmas... to a time where a little girl stood atop some stairs waiting to rush down and see all her Christmas goodies.

To my friends and family who are far away, I''ll be home for Christmas... if only in my dreams.

Merry Christmas to all of you love!  I love you and miss you!