home for the holidays
Home can mean different things from year to year, or as we grow older in general. And there are usually years where, for whatever reason, we aren’t actually able to be at the place we consider home for the holidays. Those Christmas songs hit me differently than they used to, refrains about being home for Christmas, if only in our dreams; being together if the fates allow; nothing beating home sweet home, no matter how far away we roam.
My extended family still gathers every year, everyone who can make it, for a festive weekend in the Pacific Northwest that centers around our rather large caravan driving through town and caroling to my grandparents’ friends and neighbors. It’s such a highlight of the year, and even though it doesn’t overlap with Christmas itself, it fills that piece of my heart that longs for Home at the holidays.
It surely looks different for everyone, these ideas of home and family, but I do hope each of you gets whatever form of home and family you are needing this Christmas. Even as I sit here preparing for a quiet Christmas weekend of editing my completed new manuscript (it’s finally done!), even as I’m nursing the cold I picked up while gathered with family last weekend (worth it), I’m so grateful I was able to gather with them for a few days of love, food, tradition, music, and laughter.
Merry Christmas, dear readers and friends. And look for a new book in 2024!