Do you ever find yourself thinking back on past holidays/traditions and wondering how you got from where you once were to where you are now? This week I have been reflecting on past years and what I was doing/where I was/how I felt etc. I was planning to write random things about my Christmas plans this year, but instead I found myself thinking back on the holiday and how it has changed for me from year to year.
This is the first year in many that I will be “home” for Christmas. I say that in the literal sense, because home can have many different meanings. Of course when I was growing up, I lived at home and that was the one and only meaning it had to me.
Then I went to college and went “home” to my parents’ house, the house where I grew up, for breaks. Once I moved out on my own, the term got a bit more confusing. I would go “home” to see my parents, but I was also forming my own home and life in Baltimore.
Five years ago my parents moved from New York to Maryland, which confused things further. Now I had not only my own “home”, (which was just an apartment I was renting), but also my parents’ new house, and my extended family and friends were still in New York. We still traveled “home” to New York for Christmas every year.
Once Rob and I were engaged, we started celebrating the holidays together, which meant juggling between seeing both sides of our families. We were basically going to Michigan and/or Cleveland for a few days to see his family and then driving to New York on Christmas Day to see my family. Obviously, this was pretty exhausting.
In April Rob and I moved into our first house, and last month my parents got a new puppy. We felt like we wanted to be able to spend some time on Christmas morning in our new home, and my parents couldn’t leave their dog if we were to make the trip to New York. So this year we are spending Christmas in Maryland, at their house, with my aunt and uncle who will visit for a few days.
I will miss seeing my friends and other family members over the holidays, but I think we are all looking forward to a bit more relaxing of a Christmas. We can lay by the fireplace drinking coffee instead of waking up at 5 am to drive 4 hours in the car and stay at a hotel. We will be able to open our gifts on Christmas instead of having to wait until we get back 3 days later. We can go to our own church for Christmas Eve mass and drink lots of wine without worrying about feeling sick in the car the next day.
I guess the point of this is that traditions change as our lives do. I always thought I would be one of those people who stayed in the town where I grew up and never left. I have learned that change can be good, although it is often difficult. There is always the opportunity to make new traditions or try to incorporate old traditions into new ones.
Where is “home” to you?
How have your holiday traditions changed over the years?
Our holidays have gotten smaller over the years and focused more on our immediate family plus my parents and sister. Most of my extended family has moved south and Adams family is out west, but I do like our cozier family celebrations. Have a very merry Christmas!
I think there is something to be said about smaller celebrations too. Although it is tough to be so far away from family!
Merry Christmas! It took me years to call my parents’ house my parents’ house and not “home”, even when I had a house of my own lol. So hard to change that in my head. I think it’s awesome you get to spend Christmas in your new home, as nice as it is to travel back to NY, it’s certainly nice to not travel at all and just enjoy yourselves.
I think if my parents still lived in the house where I grew up I would probably still be calling that “home”!
St. Louis will always be home for me in that sense. I lived there for 18 years and then during summers throughout college. Even though Seattle is quickly becoming home in a new sense, I always look forward to going home for the holidays.
I hope you and Rob have a merry Christmas with your family!
There will always be something special about returning to the place where you spent most of your life! I hope you had a great Christmas:)
OMG, I couldn’t wait to leave the town where I grew up! Right now I get to go back about once a month to visit my parents who, yes, still live in the house I grew up in. For many years we lived far away, so we didn’t see them often, but now we live close.
We also thought we’d retire to Austin & I loved my house there, but now here we are, in upstate NY. Life can be funny.
Merry Christmas!
I think life can always surprise us! I hope you had a great Christmas:)
Merry Christmas! You know that my home has changed as well–but the East Coast (and GA) will always be home home to me 😀
There is definitely something special about the place where we grew up, or where our families are. I hope you had a great Christmas!
Love this post because my Christmas tradition has started to change more rapidly and I am trying to “deal” with it. Right now, I still go home to the house I grew up in, but our Christmas traditions (when we see family, when we go to church, when we open presents) are no longer the same. While these little things are throwing me off because I yearn for how things used to be, I am trying to embrace the changes!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!!
I think the first few times of doing things differently are the hardest, but they gradually feel more natural. I hope you had a great Christmas!
I love this because I’ve felt this so many times. When I was 10 my parents divorced which made Christmas messy, then I got married, and now that we have our own family, we know that we won’t want to drag kids around from house to house on Christmas. I think it’s all part of just growing up!
I agree, you have to do what makes sense for you and your family!
I could talk about this subject for hours! I find it hard to try and please everyone. It’s nearly impossible to make it around to every single Christmas thing because not only do Andrew and I have two sides of our families to appease but we have this crazy schedule of half our kids coming and half of them going between their mom’s and their dad’s houses. Christmas has always been a bit sketch for me, just because my home life wasn’t that great. It takes a lot of emotional energy for me to have an open mind and heart, full of grace and hope because when I do, then amazing things pop up and surprise me. If I’m closed off and grumpy then I just get stuck there. Home to me is where we feel safe with our loves. If I can create an environment like that for our family, then I feel home for Christmas. Merry Christmas, Lisa! Lots of love, my friend.
I think what you said makes perfect sense, and the fact that you can recognize that this is a challenging time of year for you puts you a step ahead in that you can prepare to do what you can to be in the right mindset. I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!
Christmas has never been HUGE as a family gathering for us. It’s always just been our family, but that’s fine, because I know that we can celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ in any way with any amount of people.
So true- its all about being with people you care about, and doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal. I hope you had a great Christmas!
my parents got divorced when i was in high school so my holidays changes drastically. now its a little difficult being married and essentially having 3 family gatherings. logistics can be a nightmare but spending time with the family is always nice. my family comes to my house since i decorate it up each year and i like hosting too. luckily we all live in the same city but it has to be really hard when your family doest live in the same city let alone the same state!
I am sure those logistics get really complicated! It’s nice that you all live close enough that you can see everyone. I hope you had a nice Christmas!
I definitely still consider my parents’ house to be my home. They’re in Connecticut and I cannot imagine not having this house to return to from NYC over the holidays, on weekends when I need a break, and such. Not being able to escape the city would not sit well with me, which is why I hold out hoping they will at least be here in this house until I get married and leave the city for the ‘burbs and a house of my own – not too far from here 🙂 Then again, you never know where life will take you!
I know when I livd in an apartment it was always so nice to go to my parents house where there is more space! You are right, you never know where life will take you:)
It is interesting how thing change when we grow up, move, and possibly start our own families. I have gone to my Grandparent’s house every year on Christmas Eve and I haven’t missed a year! On Christmas, we always spend Christmas morning at the house I grew up in- it’s about 40 minutes from where I live now so it is not bad. Then we spend late afternoon and evening at Paul’s families house which is thankfully back closer to where we live. We are lucky everyone lives relatively close. Then normally, we come back home (the house we live in) and open up the presents we got each other. Except this year, we are opening them TONIGHT (Christmas Eve!) because we realized there will be so much to do tomorrow and we are always tired when we get home. Now we are fresh. 🙂
My brother has two kids and pretty soon I know they are going to want to stay home all day on Christmas and not travel up to my parent’s house. Since Paul and I aren’t having kids, I envision that in a ew years Christmas will move to their place because it will be easier and they will want to stay at their home and not lug 2 kids (plus one on the way!) somewhere else. I’m not going to lie, I will be sad when that day comes! I love my brother’s house, they live really close, and I completely understand why eventually they will just want to host themselves, but it will be hard to let go of the tradition of going “home” to my parent’s house on Christmas morning.
Boy, I wrote a book, didn’t I?
Now that Rob’s sister has a baby I know that they will want to start being in there home for Christmas (which is in Arkansas) and once we have kids we will feel the same way. We figure we will have to get creative and not necessarily celebrate on the actual day. Like this year we visited Robs family a few days before Christmas. It’s tough to let go of traditions but I have learned I have to be somewhat flexible and its not worth getting too stressed out over this stuff. I have to remind myself that I want to see everyone and that is a good thing!
That is a great point! As long as everyone is happy and healthy and you get to see everyone, that is what matters- not WHERE or WHEN you see them.
Great post. I think you hit on the head how the meaning of home changes as we get older. First when we go to college home, than when we got a job and move on our own and than when we meet someone that we want to live with. Have a great holiday and enjoy your new home.
Exactly- our idea of home can definitely change over the years, which makes sense as our lives change. I hope you had a great holiday!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!!
Same to you!
Your Christmas through the years sounds so much like mine. For so many years Adam and I had to travel a lot during Christmas to see all of our families. His parents lived in south Florida, my mom and stepdad lived in north-central FL and my dad lived in Georgia for a few years. We would have to hope all around and it wasn’t relaxing at all. Now my dad is back in Florida, my mom lives here in South Florida and Adam’s parents are still in South Florida so everything is much easier. This year we’re actually in our home for Christmas Eve and it’s a beautiful thing!
I hope you have a great Christmas tomorrow!
All the traveling does get pretty crazy! I hope that this year you were able to relax a bit more- I know I was!
I hope you and Adam had a wonderful Christmas:)
Enjoy the relaxation. It doesn’t matter where you are on the holidays as long as it’s spent w family. I am so thankful to be home w family this yr and not traveling for work like I used to.
I hope you had a great holiday and enjoyed being home this year!
I agree with you. I used to say I’m going “home” when I would visit my parents but I’ve made my own home too and that’s real home now. Juggling where to spend the holidays is definitely tricky.
It does get kind of confusing, and it’s weird how our idea of “home” changes! I hope you had a great holiday!:)
Love this! As I spent Christmas a few thousand miles from “home” I’ve been thinking about the same things. Growing up with divorced parents and half my family in the Midwest, “home” was never just one place. Now, for me, home is wherever my fiancé is. We make it our own Christmas with our own traditions (like watching It’s a Wonderful Life). Congrats again on the house, and hope it was a very Merry Christmas!
I am glad that you have been able to create a place for yourself that you can really call “home”. I hope you guys had a great Christmas!
One great thing about commenting later is reading all the great replies 🙂
In my heart I will always consider Massachusetts ‘home’ … Yet there is no ‘home’ for me there. My parents are in SC, my brother in NJ, my sister … well never mind that, and most other relatives are either gone or moved away.
So home is our house here in the Corning, NY area … It is where our boys went from 4th/5th grade all the way through high school, where our older son now gets to have that odd duality of this place as ‘home’ but also building a life for himself at NYU in the city.
After those two are done will college we have no idea – we have no real ties to any particular area, but want to stay close to them. So who know where ‘home’ will be five years from now!
Merry Christmas Lisa! (And to Rob and your new home!)
I’ve been loving reading the responses to this too! It’s so interesting reading about people’s experiences of “home” and their holiday traditions.
I think that each of us will always have a certain place that we think of as “home” no matter how long we have been away. I always tell people I am from NY and then I realize I have been in MD for 14 years and was in NY for 18, pretty soon I will have been here for the same amount of time that I lived there!
I am sure both your kids will really appreciate being able to go back to your house during their time in college. My parents moved here while my sister was still in college (which happened to be in Maryland, 40 minutes from where they moved) and she still wanted to go to NY over breaks to see her high school friends. She was able to stay with my aunt and uncle, but it wasn’t the same.
I’m sure that wherever Danny and Chris end up after college that you will want to stay relatively close:)
I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!
It’s so interesting to see how things evolve. I don’t know that I’ve ever considered anywhere “home” until I had my own family. That sounds weird, but we moved around a lot and I never considered one house a “home” because it never felt like that. Now I feel like I have a home with my hubby and kids and it’s an awesome feeling. Merry Christmas!
I could see how that would be tricky if you moved alot as a kid. I grew up in a small town and lived there from ages 3-18 so it was all I knew.