Finding Home for Christmas

I’m going to be spending Christmas away from my husband for the first time in twenty-four years this year. My mother is ill, so my son and I will be visiting and helping her over the holidays. Work and home responsibilities (animals…did I mention animals?) mean my husband will have to stay on our farm. Plus, I know he will want to see the new grandson and his very first Christmas. I’ll miss that, but I’m making a trade-off.

We have never been one of those families that fill a quarter of the room with presents, and as my husband reminded me, we can celebrate Christmas anytime we choose. Still, we become attached to that idea of being home for this particular holiday.

Thinking about that reminded me of the one other Christmas where I really felt I wasn’t home.

Sixteen years old, I was living with a family in Switzerland, thousands of miles from everything that was familiar to me. Their traditions weren’t my traditions. To top it all off, I had just recently had my cast removed after tearing ligaments in my ankle. I had had to undergo surgery within a week of arriving in my new temporary country. Homesickness had also arrived in a big way.

There are things I remember, like how fascinated and somewhat frightened I was by the fact my Swiss family actually burned candles on their tree. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. They also opened presents on Christmas Eve. While it was pretty cool to be able to open gifts early, it was a bit of a letdown Christmas morning. Santa was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there’d been St. Nicholas, but he’d come and gone weeks earlier on December 6^th.

All in all, it was a culture shock, and—Swiss or American—we were supposed to be celebrating the same holiday. The real comfort was in going to church. Despite the fact that it was darn cold inside that big sanctuary, the tunes were the same ones I had grown up with.

I remind myself of that now. Christmas will be different this year, but there is always something to be pulled out of it that can help give us a feeling of home, even when we are far away from the ones we love the most.

Bring on the Wassail--Please!

You know, every year I swear I’m going to get in the Christmas spirit. Really. I’ll decorate earlier, better and I faithfully pledge to take better care of the Christmas tree so that when I pull it down after the New Year it’s not because the Fire Inspector chastised me for crunchy tree needles.
But Christmas seems to fly in and out faster and faster, and after the New Year rings in I’m left to wonder, what did it really mean?
Sure, the economy’s not great, but it’s not the complete inability to satisfy my child’s every Christmas whim that has me on edge.
It’s just a feeling that something’s getting lost along the way. I’m looking for a little peace on earth and good will toward men. That’s really all I desire.
So, once again, I’m going to irritate my spouse when he asks what I want for Christmas because my reply will be—nothing. At least not anything that can be bought and wrapped and placed beneath the tree to be ripped open on Christmas morning.
I want my family around me without the laundry list of gimmes or gots. I want to feel like I’ve made someone else’s holiday better because I could help them in some way.

Last year’s Holiday hangover resulted in the writing of Santa’s Helper, which releases today from The Wild Rose Press. Jack, the hero, is covering a bet he’s lost by ringing a bell and collecting money for charity. Merry, the heroine, is working three jobs to support her and her son—one of them is as a Santa’s elf at the mall. She’s filled with the Christmas spirit and Jack’s not, even though it seems like the opposite should be the case. The attraction is instant, but Jack’s got a secret that could make even Merry say, “Bah, humbug!”
What are the things that put you in the holiday spirit? Leave a comment and I’ll put your name in a drawing for a copy of Santa’s Helper. Drawing will take place Sunday, 12/11 at 10 p.m. Good Luck.
Oh..hey...read the next post and leave a comment there too. You'll be entered in a drawing for my contemporary romance Bittersweet. It released Monday.