I woke up this morning and checked Facebook like I do every morning. He had a news feed full of Christmas trees, talked about grocery shopping for the big dinner, recipes from Latkes, and parents sitting in layers with young children in front of their Christmas trees sipping hot chocolate waiting for the big guy. Families travel near and far to be with other family members. I turned around and looked at my husband, who had already been working for hours, and wished it was 2005. I was missing the idea that both my husband and I had a few days off, no work, no emails, no spreadsheets. My two chicks out of school, no homework, no projects. The only to-do list in existence was a list of everyone’s favorite cookies, a smashed gingerbread house on the counter, waiting to be assembled, and a large pot of gravy on the stove. The smell of Christmas wafting through the house dancing to Amy Grant’s Christmas in Tennessee.
Instead, I’m in New York City, in a warehouse in the West Village, with The Rolling Stones Satisfaction on stun playing in an endless loop fit only for torture. I’m in New York City, possibly the most Christmas town around. I have not ventured to see the tree, I have not gone to Radio City Music Hall to see the Nutcracker, I have not done a bouche de noel. The only Christmas lights I’ve seen are in the break room, where I meet my staff for 15 minutes every morning. I have to work Christmas Eve and Christmas. There won’t be a big pot of sauce on the stove because I’m living in a hotel. There will be no cookies baked in the oven and there will be no gingerbread house. He won’t leave cookies for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph, but to be honest, Santa and Rudolph long ago took my house off their list of stops.
I miss the nostalgic Norman Rockwell Christmas that I remember from when I was little. I miss Christmas mornings when my chickens were little and the look on their faces when they saw that Santa had eaten his cookies, drunk the milk, and the note Rudolph left for the cookies next year instead of that lousy carrot.
My Christmases have certainly changed over the years, as they do when chickens grow up and move out of their nest and start building their own. So when I turned around this morning and saw my husband working, I looked out the window on the 20th floor of our hotel and it hit me. I may not smell like Christmas cookies or Amy Grant’s Christmas sounds, but I have a good job. I have a job that allows me to work with my husband every day and on Christmas morning I wake up next to him, not alone. I am working in a city 2 hours from where I used to live in Pennsylvania and I am lucky that some friends made the trip to the city to give me a hug. I have made new friends and thanks to technology I can keep up with old friends. I can log into Facebook and get homesick through them, and that warms my heart. I can face my chickens and I know they are spending Christmas surrounded by love, Christmas music, cookies and gravy.
When I got to work this morning, I had realized that I still have Christmas left; it’s just a different version of Christmas. I am surrounded by love, warmth, and the occasional Christmas lights. I also don’t have to deal with the task I hated the most, knocking down the Christmas tree, turning off the lights, and washing all those dishes.
So, from me to yours, I hope your days are filled with lots of love and an abundance of cookies. The opportunity to reflect as you choose and a sense of peace. I hope all your chickens come home to sleep or that you can at least talk to them for a minute.
See you in 2017.
* If that’s my gingerbread house *
