New House, Same Christmas

I just returned from my three-week-long holiday trip to Missouri, and it was better than expected. I had been dreading the holidays for months knowing that the comforts and traditions of holidays past would be gone or at least extremely altered. I had grown accustomed to my Christmases being largely the same and rather uneventful each year. The decorations, music and food hadn't changed much since my first Christmas way back in 1983. (The picture at left is from my second Christmas when I was looking all boyish in my cropped hair and saddle shoes.) Any differences were slight and gradual. The tree's location had moved a few times and it had gotten considerably smaller over the years, but my mom had always kept the large assortment of sentimental and handmade ornaments. For years, I had dreamt of a stylish color-themed tree with large glass bulbs and sparkly garland and this year with all of our ornaments gone, that is exactly what we had. As pretty as it was and being what I had always wanted, it was fine, but I was surprised to be missing the tree with all of its ornaments of memories.

I can still remember the Christmas that my dad unwrapped Home Alone. It must have been in 1991, a year after the film's theatrical release. We took it to my mom's side of the family that day, and we all watched it while my Uncle Zip snickered at the smart little guy the whole time. Twenty years later, that movie is still a Christmas staple for me. Within the first few days I was home, I tossed the DVD into my parent's Target cart and after an hour of trying to figure out how to plug the DVD player into their television, all three of us were watching (and snoring through) Kevin's hi-jinx. Some things will just never change!

My parents moved into their new house in October, and this was the first time I was able to see it with them and their things in it. The house is beautiful and seeing my parents moving on happily put my mind at ease. It is going to take me a bit before I am able to call this house 'home'. Everything is still a bit too shiny, new and foreign to me. After three weeks, I was still lost in the kitchen opening multiple drawers and cabinets in order to find a frying pan. My room is about a third of the size of my old one and, at the moment, devoid of anything that really makes it mine. The bed is fluffy and almost too comfortable helping me believe that this place might be a hotel all the more. In the first couple of days I was home, I broke down crying wishing for our old home. There is really no going back, and I'm still coming to terms with that fact. Shiny and new are nice and exciting, but sometimes you just want to go home to the room and bed and Christmas tree you've always known.