Home for the Holidays

This year I wrote no Thanksgiving post--not, mind you, because I wasn't grateful.  But because I felt grateful for so many things that I wouldn't know where to start or where to end, and I wouldn't be entirely sure what would fill in the middle, either.

And even as I sit here drafting this Christmas post, I'm feeling mostly glad that I get to go home every Christmas.  My parents have lived in the same house for a while--a longer-than-I've-been-alive while--and I have a hard time imagining anyplace else will ever feel as comfortable.  It's the house equivalent of a favorite pair of jeans, except that's a terrible analogy because I don't associate jeans with everything I associate with my home.

On Christmas Eve, my brother and my parents and I opened our gifts from each other.  We figured we'd leave all the mayhem (a.k.a. the munchkins opening their presents) for the morning when we could just sit back and watch how they liked everything.  And then my brother, my mom, and I sat in a row on the couch while my dad read us the Nativity story.

From a picture book.  But with all the scriptural text, more or less, and the set-up was essential to all three of us being able to see the pictures.

My older sister and her family will not come in until a few days from now, so I like to think that we're to an extent having holidays the way hobbits eat: we've had first Christmas, and soon we'll have second Christmas.  And thanks to Skype, we still saw them today even if only for a few minutes.

And I suppose all of this is to say: I read a book a couple of weeks ago called The Man Who Invented Christmas.  It's the story behind Dickens writing A Christmas Carol (and I apologize to anyone to whom I've spouted random factoids from this book, but honestly, it's something I want to place into the hands of anyone who says books don't have the power to change anything...ahem...).  Anyway, it quotes Dickens as essentially saying that Christmas is family, and it should always be spent at home.

I must say I agree.