Today marks the beginning of our family’s holiday season. The kids are officially out of school, I’ve put up my out of office for work, and the first round of vacation sickness is upon us. Isn’t it weird how in a houseful of people, at least one person gets sick on vacation, threatening to take down the entire family? Last night both my wife and our third oldest daughter London came down with sore throats, low grade fevers, and chest rattling coughs. No matter, we still had our fun with a few rounds of apples to apples and twister (which I won in a contested battle), followed by a holiday movie to kick off our next 10 days straight binge watching our favorites.

I’m keenly aware that right now, for us life is really good and I’m so grateful. I’m also thoughtful about the fact that nothing, good or bad lasts forever. And if I’m being honest, it makes me a little sad to know things will change.

Not everyone has an idyllic holiday, in fact that hasn’t always even been my own story. It’s probably why I’ve worked so hard to curate for my own family holiday memories and traditions to erase and replace the ones I grew up with. Throughout most of my adolescence, Christmas was a season of worry. Would we have any toys at all? Would we have a roof over our head? Most of my elementary and middle school years I remember the Toys for Tots program showing up at our door with deliveries and I was just so grateful. I remember in the middle of my sixth grade year moving to South Carolina, about to attend my fifth school in six years and I was just exhausted, physically and mentally. I ended up having a seizure and spending much of the holiday break in the front bedroom of my grandma’s house on bed rest. At that point Christmas stopped being about innocent joy, and I started focused on making it through the holiday season.

Throughout my high school years I worked multiple jobs so that I could help my mother pay bills and during the holidays I provided the bulk of my younger siblings gifts. They still bring that up today as adults, and every time they do I’m reminded of my most important contributions. Ensuring my younger siblings had a good Christmas was a real point of pride for me, I just didn’t want them thinking that they were any less deserving simply because we were less well off.

As I got older, Christmas became less about the gift giving and more about making time and space to gather my family together. I caught the vision for this my senior year in college when I went home for Christmas with my then fiancé (now wife), to join her family. Tucked into a small row house was nearly four or five generations, at least sixty to seventy people strong. I’d never seen that many people come together under one roof before, and I loved it. It’s been a tradition for her family for as long as she can remember, made easy by the fact that everyone lived within close proximity in east Baltimore.

Now with our own kids, we stopped making the Christmas trip a while ago and instead decided to make some memories at home. I love the memories we’re making, Christmas PJs and game nights, movies all day and night, hanging out with friends, special trips to see holiday lights, ice skating, watching old family movies… these are a few of my favorite things as the saying goes. Another classic.

I’m holding close to these memories, because even if the moments don’t last (they never do), the memories can live on for a lifetime.

SDW3