Family

The thing about the holidays is if your family is far away you feel so completely homesick that it can be paralyzing at times. So paralyzing that the sadness begins to build and the holidays become a season of sadness. Others try to make you feel better or cheer you up but they just can’t seem to comprehend the pit in your stomach that makes you feel sick all of the time. It’s there just waiting. Waiting for who knows what.  I feel sad during the holidays. I try to smile and laugh and listen to silly music to cheer myself up. And occasionally it works. But it’s just a band-aid. Then people rip it off only to reveal the gash in your heart. You miss your family, your friends, your moms cooking, and your holiday traditions.  I miss the kids and how excited they get.. it awakens the magic I once felt. Without them things just don’t feel right.

My family and I may not always see eye to eye but we love each other so much. There is a bond there that cannot be explained. Perhaps it’s what we were taught or that we are all so close because we had some amazing experiences together. We did everything together and it was fun. We were so imperfect but perfectly cohesive. Christmas was an amazing time of year. Sometimes it would snow outside. My brothers and sisters and I would build snowmen and snow forts or snow castles. We would hide inside them or behind them and have snowball fights until our fingers turned blue. Our mittins or gloves would get soaked at some point and we would throw them on the porch and continue to play. Our parents had to make us come inside. 

We picked out our Christmas tree every year. Sometimes we would cut them down ourselves and sometimes we would get them from the local boy scouts.  Once we got them home my dad would trim them down and put them in a stand. Once inside the excitement would begin. Someone would turn on Christmas music and color would explode inside the house. As we grew up more and more homemade Christmas ornaments would cling to our tree. It was filled with love and excitement from years past. In our minds there was not greater tree than that one. Every year we felt the same. We put so much tinsel on the tree that by the end of the day it was scattered around the house. My parents saved the best for last… the candy canes. They purchased candy canes for us to put all over the tree. Different flavors and colors. Then every day up until Christmas we could take a couple off and take them with us to school to snack on or take them off to have with hot chocolate after playing in the snow. 

During high school my friends and I began going to Christmas eve services at a local church. We felt like it was a great time to get together, exchange gifts, and spend the first few minutes of Christmas focusing on the true meaning. The service would start at 11pm and get out a little after midnight. We would sing Christmas carols, light up candles, listen to a Christmas sermon, and hear the big church bell let out right at midnight. 

For us the holidays were a magical time. . Christmas Eve everyone got special Christmas Pajamas that they opened up. We would sleep in them. There was this feeling I used to get when I was a kid when I woke up in the morning and they would be in all of our Christmas morning pictures. It was this magically excited feeling. It was a mix of wonder, awe, and excitement.  The feeling only came a few times a year. Anyway on Christmas morning we would get up around 5:30-6:00, walk into the Christmas lit living-room  and open our personalized stockings. There were so many amazing things to unveil. Little chocolates, something girly, a piece of jewelry, peanuts  and always a brightly colored Orange that fit in the toe of the stocking. Everyone’s stocking was different. We sat there for hours playing with our goodies and eating candy for breakfast. 

At around 9:30 our parents would get up, have some pie for breakfast, possibly open their stockings, and finish up last minute dishes. Holidays for us were filled with food and family. Our parents would stay up all night preparing for the next day. Baking would begin early Christmas eve morning and go until Christmas day. We all worked together. One year we had over 22 home-made pies, two vegtable trays, Cookie trays galore, two to three large turkeys, a ham, home-made mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, yams, pickled green beans,  cranberry sauce, bowls of mixed nuts, chip and home-made dip trays, bread bowls full of spinach dip, and who knows how much more. As more family would arrive random food would get added to the buffet.. more pies, more cookies, different food trays, deviled eggs,  eggnog, spiced cider, meat and cheese trays, cracker trays, spiced wine,  sparkling cider, punch…or whatever people were excited to bring. Everyone chipped in and made the day even more magical. We would laugh and play  all day long. It was always a fun day.

 Between 10:30 – 11:00 family would start to show up. It was a pretty normal thing. My parents would usually get us two gifts. Each of us got one small gift and one large gift. We opened them together. My dad took a bazillion pictures with his film camera. One person played Santa and passed the gifts out one by one.  Sometimes our parents didn’t have a lot of money for gifts so they would make us these amazing pillows or blankets or t-shirts. Those Christmases were extra magical. The whole day family would stop by bringing more food, staying until they were in a food coma, and watching A Christmas carol or Scrooge.

By midnight everyone would leave and we would crash in our beds. It was a wonderful time.  It makes sense why I miss it.