Family

That is something special. No matter what your family is there. There is a Christmas song that I have loved the last couple of years, “there’s no place like home for the holidays”. No, no,  this is not a Christmas post! Lately though I have started appreciating even more the “no place like home”. It applies to my own home, the comfort that I am creating there. It also applies to when I visit my home. This trip I have spent a lot more time expressing certain memories to my oldest that he has not been interested in the past.

“When I was little I knew we were close to grandma’s house when I saw these apartments….” or “I remember going on a long trip with my parents and…” He would drink in every word and get excited with me. It has been so much fun. I want to drive by the house where I grew up for that very reason, I think he will really appreciate seeing it this year.

There are memories in my grandparents house and it’s a joy to sleep in the formerly “pink” room that were my aunt’s room when I was little. Or watching my kids play in the front patio where I used to play with my cousins when I would stay over. And Eli slept alone this trip in the bed that I spent many trips sleeping in, he was thrilled about that.

Of course, now when I visit my parents we are not in a house that I have ever lived in, and yet there is the familiar painting of the little girl looking at the bird that my mother got when my great grandmother passed away. There is the clock on the mantelpiece that I remember seeing my whole life, I believe it was a wedding present? It is these items that trigger memories of standing in front of a window air conditioner in the middle of a terribly hot summer letting that cold air blow into our mouths! Do not ask me how things relate in a child’s mind, but the memories are there just needing a little push to come forward.

On top of my memories I am watching my boys create their own memories. Of powdered sugar donuts, swings in the backyard, a fort in a tall tree, a rock climbing wall…. going golf with Papa. The memories mount up and all I see is…. J O Y. (except for the  fighting in the back room of course; but some things never change!)