The Christmas Holiday has changed for us over the past few years. It used to be that we would have a holiday party in our house where we would invite all our friends and Heron family to come and enjoy the season’s greetings. We would do a White Elephant gift exchange which is usually one of the most fun things to watch people young and old opening gifts from folks who bring items not to be bought but a gift that gets a chance to be regifted and passed on to be used or loved by a new owner. The house was always full to the brim with people hanging outside around a burn barrel passing around stories or whatever else they had to share. Inside was full of conversation and music when someone would jump onto the piano and Christmas carols could be heard and loads of food looking for a space on a table somewhere waiting to be consumed. There was even a time when the pool table in the equipment shed was a favorite spot getting us out of the snow and blustery wind. I would always go out beforehand looking for a tree that Julie planted so many years ago that I could cut down and haul into the house to stand up in front of our two-story picture windows. What fun that always was!
A few years ago, we invested with 45 other like-minded folks to purchase a property next door to the Heron that was an old late 1800’s brick house and barn that had a huge entertainment room providing lots of room for the party to be moved to the new location. It came with a nice modern kitchen, lot of room to house the plethora of folks to enjoy our holiday gathering.
After we moved the party over to the new location, there was not any reason to decorate our place for the holidays along with that one too. It seemed like overkill to decorate two locations. It was a bit sad, but in reality, it made better sense.
We have three grown kids who have partners and family in other locations and even though we would try to get together some time over the holiday week, it was sporadic but still enjoyable. This year I got a call from my son Skye, wondering what we were up to for Christmas. He wanted to know if he and his family (they have two young kids) and my other son and his partner could come down for Christmas! Of course, I was delighted to say YES! A few days later, I got a call from my daughter’s boyfriend Brownie, wanting to know if they could come from St. Louis for Christmas also? He was going to surprise Emily with this idea because he knew she was missing family during the holidays.
So, the conclusion to this little Christmas story is, I went out yesterday and cut a top off one of the trees I had cut years ago, brought it in today to be decorated for our Christmas gathering this coming weekend. What a great joy to have the house decorated and all our family home for the holidays. It will be fun making memories for our grandchildren, Milo and Penelope, as I had when I was young. Oh, the joy of coming home for the Holidays!
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you get a chance to spend time with loved ones young and old and make memories to be shared for many years to come.