Jill's Journal: It’s my Christmas tradition ... for now
“What are your plans for Christmas?”
In recent weeks, I, just like many of you, have been asked that very question on a number of occasions. In fact, I answered that very question during half-time of Thursday’s thrilling girls’ basketball game at O’Gorman. This time, it was Brandon Valley High School Associate Principal Mitzi Moore who was doing the asking. And once I’d filled her in, I fired the same question back at her.
This year will mark the fourth Christmas in my six-decade-plus years of life that our family will gather without my mom, and the 18th year since my dad’s passing. I’m not going to lie, I miss them both. And as a single gal, I truly do miss “going home” for the holidays.
Out of habit, I catch myself saying, “I’m going ‘home’ …” and then correct myself, noting that ‘going home’ entails spending Christmas Eve with my lifetime friend, Trisha, and her mom, Enie, and Christmas Day with my immediate family.
Over the last four years, this has become our “new normal”. We follow many of the same traditions that took place under the Meier roof. We catch up, we laugh, we eat way too much, we check out the local establishments for a chance reunion with friends from our past, we exchange gifts, and of course, we eat way too much multiple times.
In our lifetimes, people come into and go out of lives. Some by chance. Some intentionally. Some through mutual friends. Others at church, school and in our professional lives. Trisha and her family came into our lives when the Meier’s settled in on Third Street, where our backyards met up like the Tri-State marker. Ironically so, we were both the same age as were our brothers, Bob and Brian. And as one may anticipate, we didn’t warm up to one another immediately. No, I well remember my brother and I protecting our turf, and the Curry kids, well, they did the same.
The standoff didn’t last long. Within the hour, the Meier kids and the Curry kids had put their “turf wars” aside in exchange for a lifetime of friendship.
As our friendship inches closer to six decades strong, I know there will come a day when both Trisha and I will establish new Christmas traditions. Sadly, it will come when Trisha no longer travels from California to Minnesota, and the Curry home has new tenants.
Although my Christmas tradition surely isn’t the same as it once was, it makes my heart happy to spend time in the comforts of familiar surroundings with people I consider the same as family. And for now, it’s our collective Christmas tradition to cherish.
Merry Christmas.
