It’s a lovely and mind-boggling thing to watch your children become people–and by that I mean grownups with lives all their own, often lived in faraway cities. You feel great pride in watching their growth, their maturity, their learning to deal with all the incoming of daily life as they stand independent from you.
But it’s also a weird thing to spend much of the holiday season simply waiting for them to return home.
(Now I understand my own mother’s sentiments when I’d walk in her door after making the long six-hour drive to Virginia. “You’re here,” she’d say. “Now Christmas can begin.” Internally I’d roll my eyes a little, thinking she was being just a tad dramatic. I mean, there were 4000 Santas in her little den alone. Clearly Christmas had taken up residence.)
Oh do I get it now.
Still the point I meant to make as I sat down to write Day 8 is the joy my heart felt when this photo scrolled by on Instagram.
This is Maddie’s tree. Sweet, sweet Maddie, a dear friend of Eliza’s who lives in a tiny, tiny one room apartment in the city. I looked at this little tree with its white lights and star and felt the joy of simple things, of small spaces and kind gestures, of how awesome it can be when there is, in fact, less. Not more.
It’s just exactly perfect, this tree. Don’t you think?
About the time I hit the LOVE button on Instagram a ping popped on my phone. My own Eliza had sent a video of her three roommates running across a gigantic intersection with a long skinny bundle under their arms. (You have never heard such giggling.)
We just bought a real Christmas tree! she wrote.
Hanna and the star
I don’t know where they got the ornaments, or the tree skirt, or the star, but I know it makes me immensely happy that those four lovies have brought the spirit of the holidays to their apartment. It was a well considered decision, I am quite certain, as living in Atlanta requires each of them to budget well.
And so all of us–all the Moms and Dads and Grands and Aunties and Uncles–all of us are waiting, watching, counting the days until the planes land or the buses stop or the cars pull in the drives, counting the moments until those we love most come home.
And then it will be Christmas.
XXOO
30 Days of Joy
Exactly! Thanks for writing this!
🙂
Oh my goodness! This one touched deep and hard! Every time my sweet girl leaves for college, and I stand in the driveway, remembering 30 years ago when my mom did that – and thinking how RIDICULOUS she was. I was only going to Rock Hill! But wow, now I so get it. And my sweet momma is probably in heaven chuckling just a little, because I’m now the one standing in the driveway! Merry Christmas! Thanks for the gift!!!
Right? I feel you girl. And why does it never get easier? Thanks for commenting, friend!