Every year on Christmas Eve our family gathers at my moms log cabin on the Tippecanoe River in Monticello, Indiana to celebrate Christmas together. Its very small and quaint with time catching up with all of us...and the place of our youth. The yard is far from manicured and collections of lifes journey abound to the point of taking over. The patriarch of the family , our grandfather, passed some 15 years ago and this year we lost our most adored Grandma Smith. At the same time our family has grown with now the 4th generation becoming parents, going to college, and moving out into the world on their own. The family gatherings at our mothers house are beginning to change. Yesterday at the mall while Christmas shopping I ran into my niece, Chelsea Dulin, amongst the crowd and we took a selfy surrounded by strangers and a few of her good friends. Somehow it made me think about Christmas at my moms house. While bored shopping I played a fun little text game with my band sending photos of gifts Im NOT going to buy for them for Christmas. Even that game reminded me of Christmas at the cabin. I watched people buying useless stuff, carrying bags of gifts, complaining to clerks, clerks arguing about work, and if thought of Christmas Eve on the river. The WORLD is changing...but not Christmas. You see, when I think about Christmas, I think about this tiny cabin full of people I love, but dont always agree with. I think about candle wax dripping down my knuckles as we sing Silent Night and peeling the sticky plastic wrapper off of a candy cane with my teeth while my mom tells the story of its origin. I think about my sisters chocolate chip cookies and steeling the dough balls before they are cooked. My mind thinks of my growing family crouching in every possible nook of that way-undersized room with a 14-foot real evergreen reaching its limbs into the wooden rafters of the house our family built by hand. I think about singing yet another verse of a song to a mismatched group of family with my nearly deaf grandmothers scratchy voice whispering loudly under mine...GOD Id love to have that back!! Yes, Christmas may be changing to the rest of the world around me...but Christmas to me will always be about moments like these... youtu.be/2CgW6s3Xl74
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 14:11:11 +0000
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