Winter Wonderland

Since my days are filled with unpacking and I haven't been able to scrounge enough time up to write a decent post, I am publishing my article from this month's Growing Up Chico magazine...

I am counting the days until Christmas. This will be the first year my son, now three, will be old enough to be intoxicated by the sheer magic of the season. Sure, we’ve decorated the house to the hilt ever since he’s been born, but this will be the first year there’ll be more to the tree than just “Don’t touch that!”

The holidays are the time when we unpack our own childhood. We revisit the memories we made as children, remembering holiday traditions long past that still warm our hearts. Our first snowball fight. Roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. The smell of a steaming holiday supper, which for me meant mountains of meatballs piled atop an enormous platter of pasta. I swear I can still smell the garlic. Whether we’re pulling out the ornaments or unpacking the menorah, we’re hoping to give our children the same joy we experienced so many years ago. We’re hoping to make memories that will linger in their hearts forever. And we’re hoping, in a very small, quiet way in the corner of our hearts, to bring back the joy for ourselves.

For we’ve been waiting for this for years, it seems. I know that I spent too many newly-married holidays empty with expectation, wondering exactly what it was I needed to make Christmas feel complete. It wasn’t the giving, the receiving, or even the decorating of my first home that warmed my heart. It was the first time I saw my son, dressed in red velvet with white fur trim, touch the tip of his finger to the flickering lights on the Christmas tree. I watched the smile spread across his little face, and as I did, I felt my heart begin to melt.

It is no longer about fighting for time off from work, fighting with my husband about whose parents we’ll eat Christmas Eve dinner with, or fighting with the crowds at the mall. It has once again become about baking as many cookies as will fit in the oven, drinking hot chocolate in front of the fire, writing letters to Santa in green and red crayon. It is about making presents for Daddy out of glue and acorns and glitter. About elves, reindeer, and the magic hope for snow, no matter how far away from the North Pole we live.

That is the best part of having children, I’m finding out. They bring back the fun, the delight, the joy in the parts of our lives we thought were empty. They make us remember what is was like to wait up all night for Santa, to give a gift we made with our own hands, to be live in the moment and be happy with all that we have.

They bring us back to ourselves.