christmas is a big deal in our family. for a long time, we always made a huge event out of decorating the tree. we would all stay home one night, get in the car and go find the perfect tree–at walmart. joel would ceremoniously whip out the christmas music collection, and we would fight over which ornaments went where on the tree and was the ku ornament higher than the kstate one.
over the years, though, we’ve all gotten busy. between finals week, work and being all over the place, we are never all in the same place at any given time in december. so now, my parents go get a tree and my mom decorates it.
this afternoon i helped her. we must have hundreds of homely ornaments we made in school or church. with each ornament comes about a flood of memories. between us siblings and our cousins, we’ve made thousands of holiday memories over the years, from our “holiday musicals” to the living nativity to carolling to top secret projects.
i love my family and, Biblical significance aside, the holidays have little meaning to me without them.
this year’s been hard for us, though, and for those we love. 2007 saw the deaths of several family friends, including three childhood friends. while it makes me more thankful than i’ve ever been for the safety of my own family, i can’t even imagine what those families feel right now during the first holiday season without brad or amanda or alex or any of the other people who passed this year.
not to be pithy but, in the middle of all the happiness, just slow down for a second and let those you love know just how much they mean to you. it sounds cliche, but you really never know when it might be your last with them.
I love you.