Last year at this time, I wrote a post for a private room I belong to. I was feeling a multitude of emotions at the time as I huddled in my big chair before the fireplace. I could see images in the flickering firelight of my little ones on Christmas morning, their eyes wide with delight and anticipation as I unhooked their stockings from the mantel, and my father’s sly look as he snitched a date pinwheel cookie from the round red tin they’d been packed in. I saw myself at the railing overlooking my sister’s living room as her daughter and son-in-law played with my great-nephews, and my mom as she used to be, upright and strong of body and mind, lifting my youngest daughter in her arms for a look into the fondue pot where sweet, rich chocolate melted. And my nephew, asleep on the couch amid all the noise.
In their faces were shades of all the Christmases past and promises of all the Christmases yet to be, the future generations of children who would grow our family beyond the capacity of my house to hold them all. But not beyond the capacity of my heart, and that was the thought at the core of my post last year in that private writing room. That this season is not about the shopping or the crowds or the gifts. It’s not even about the religion, really, despite its religious beginnings.
It’s about the love.
For my oldest friends, and my very newest ones. For the people I care about the most deeply in both happiness and heartache. For the children we’ve lost and those who remain, and for the children yet to come. It’s about the giving of ourselves to those who look to us for strength and hope, and the doing of things that bring those people a little bit of sunshine.
My heart is full again this year remembering past times with our happy, noisy crowd under the same roof, all twenty-eight of us. There is sadness because my nephew is gone now, and Christmas will not be the same, ever, without him, and there is longing for those who are far away and can’t be here to share the joy and the laughter.
But mostly, there is love.
In the quiet and peace of this night, as I smile with those who are near to me and send my thoughts and dreams and wishes to those who are not, my heart overflows with it.
Merry Christmas, everyone.