“Going home for the Christmas holidays.”
You hear that a lot these days. Some people say it with a big smile, some with trepidation about catching planes, long drives and harsh winter weather.
College students head home a week or two before the big day struggling to fall into old home rules and newfound freedom. Young couples have to make a tough choice or try to be everywhere on Christmas.
If you’re fortunate enough to go home to your family house, you might find it filled with memories of distant childhoods — growth charts on door frames, the creaky step that sounded louder after curfew and the photos of ancestors long gone on the mantle.
What does going home look like as we get older? Home might be the one you have lovingly made with your spouse and children, or that old family homestead, a little worn and more difficult to polish to a high gloss, and with too many empty chairs.
Sometimes going home is making something distant and unfamiliar feel like home. It’s a hotel room near your in-laws where dozens of family members gather for the big day and there’s definitely no more room at the inn.
It might look nothing like a home, but rather a lonely jail cell, crowded homeless shelter or medical facility.
We can learn much from the Holy Family. Joseph and Mary set off from their home with an unknown future waiting just around the next mountain pass. We believe they settled in a stark stable with no creature comforts, but probably creatures watching nearby. The coming of Baby Jesus made that manger a home, and that couple a family.
Home is more than the walls and roof and big door. It’s that feeling you get of belonging, being loved and being a part of the generations that tell your family story.
As you get ready to go home this Christmas, ponder what home means to you and what your role is there — caregiver, provider, youngest child, wise senior, second cousin, longtime friend.
Embrace home in whatever form it appears to you this year and count your blessings for the faith that brings us home, on bended knee, in front of the creche every Christmas.
A blessed Christmas to all.
