Home for Christmas
In his story “Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor,” John Cheever depicts the loneliness and misery of poor people amidst the festive displays of the affluent. We don’t need to hark back to the world of Dickens’s Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim to realize that joy to the world is not universally shared, even in our own land of plenty. The holidays are actually far from merry and bright for many in our midst. For the homeless among us, the loners, the alienated, the grieving, and all those far from home, Christmas is often a bleak and lonesome time in a season of merriment, a time when countless people have nowhere to go “home” to where joy awaits them. We would do well, those of us who are more fortunate, to spare a thought at this festive season for those who are not so blessed this year and to share our bounty with them.
For most of us, “I’ll be home for Christmas” takes on altered meanings in our lives as the years proceed. In childhood it means celebrating the holiday with all the familiar traditions in the warmth of the family home: holly and ivy are draped, mistletoe hung, the tree is trimmed with the nativity scene beneath it, eggnog and gingerbread cookies are served, and doors on the Advent calendar opened while carols fill the air. Whatever our own family traditions, they are likely the cherished memories that come to mind each Christmas season for those of us who celebrate. But as our circumstances and our notion of family evolve with the years, so does our sense of “home.”
While our parents are still alive, their home is often still the center of holiday celebrations, time and circumstance permitting. For some that means spending part of the holiday there. For others it’s merely stopping by for a visit at Christmastime. For still others it may mean sharing some cherished time on a video call. In our early years of marriage, we often have two parents’ homes to "come home to" for the holidays. Then, as our own families grow our home becomes the center of celebrating with our own children, our blended family traditions of pfeffernusse and rum balls, stollen and Christmas crackers becoming their own, the Christmas customs they’ll one day remember. Anyway we manage it, “coming home” for Christmas is a joy central to the season for most of us.
Amidst the valued traditions our families reenact each Christmas, we are left, as the years slip away, with the absence of loved ones who are no longer with us, the ghosts of Christmas past. No one in my life has ever appreciated the joys of Christmas as much as my late sister Rose Ann had in her time among us. By making her own decorations each year, stringing the lights, baking holiday goodies, and visiting with family, she embodied the joys of the season and passed on that legacy to her own three children. In her exhilaration my Sis showed us all how to keep Christmas well.
Last year my nephew Edmond died well before his time. And just before Thanksgiving this year, we lost another one of our family anchors when my cousin Catherine died in Florida. As with the death of her brother Al many years earlier, it was one of those losses that rocks you to the core, but—as with Sis and Edmond and Al—we found solace in having had Cat in our lives. While the passing of someone dear can sometimes overshadow the celebrations in a season of loss, we may find it comforting to enjoy the holiday in their name, observing the festivities for them as they themselves had done when they were among us. Perhaps we might, in that sense, “bring them home for Christmas” once again.
