I love December. I love the lights, the hymns and songs, the anticipation of Christmas, the stashes of presents in closets and on shelves. I love the focus on Christ and his birth so long ago, how He came to Earth to experience life as we do to help us. I love the baking and preparing for Christmas, strangers wishing you happy holidays, cutting down and decorating the Christmas tree. I love to see the joy in my children's eyes when they see the tree, and the joy I feel when I see them
and the tree. This time of year makes me feel happy all the way through my bones.
Yet, there is no other time of year that makes me as nauseatingly homesick as Christmas, either. That's right. At the age of - ahem - 33, I still get homesick for my parents' house.
The first time I spent Christmas away from home was when I worked as a missionary for
my church. I had been away from home for ten months by then and while I missed my family some, I wasn't really homesick. I loved what I was doing, I was busy and happy. I was doing great all through December. Right up to the afternoon of Christmas Eve when I was doing dishes in our little kitchen in the apartment I lived in with three other missionaries. It suddenly hit me that approximately 6000 miles away, my family was sitting down at the Christmas dinner table without me. I sobbed into the dishwater for a while and then I tried to shake it off, trying to convince myself that I was having a splendid adventure and experiencing an American Christmas for what might be the only time in my life. (!) I actually did pretty well until we went to this sweet family's house for Christmas Eve Dinner and they had a buffet style meal with crackers and other snacks. It was not what I expected and certainly not what I was used to for Christmas Eve and the absence of my family and our traditions made my heart ache.
In the years since, I have spent only a couple of Christmases with my parents and sister and it is still the time of year that makes me miss them the most. Of course, I have had wonderful holidays with my husband, my children and the people we love here in the US and I adore the traditions we are creating in our little family. Like I said, I love December and I certainly don't spend all my time sobbing into the dishwater. I do think back fondly to the Christmases of my childhood; remembering the smell of goose roasting in the oven, the sweet flavor of rødkål, the smell of pine, our Christmas tree all lit up by beautiful lights and decked out in ornaments as old as I. I remember the tree with beautifully wrapped presents underneath and the excitement of seeing them.
I make my kids dress up, because that's what we did for Christmas Eve and it made it even more special. We open a few presents on Christmas Eve as well as a nod to how
it's supposed to be done. Ahem, I mean, done in Denmark... Just like when I was a child, Santa may ring the doorbell as he drops by, and there will be no cheese-and-crackers Christmas Dinners. And hopefully, some day, my kids will think back with only happy memories of their Christmases as well.
Thus, with a nod to the ghost of Christmas past - thank you mom and dad for making Christmas my favorite time of year. Thank you for traditions, for everything you sacrificed so that Lou and I could be spoiled and happy.
And mostly, so very much, thank you for the love you always poured out on us in abundance.
Glædelig Jul!