No Place Like Home

What makes a place "home"? And, really, is there - to quote Dorothy - no place like it? Is it being with people who are family that makes us feel like we are at home? I want to suggest that there are problems with that philosophy. After all, there is more angst about dealing with the idiosyncrasies of our various family members that can drive holiday celebrations straight into pill-popping full blown anxiety attacks. N'est-ce pas?

Is it the familiarity of a place and its accoutrements that makes home feel like home? We have gotten used to the wallpaper, the creak of the third step, the chip in the stove, the tree-lined street, the crooked drive in the front yard. We don't have to deal with the unknown - its all comfortably predictable. But isn't predictability the main reason for boredom? What is it that makes home home?

When we were children, Christmas day began before the sun peeked over the mountains. We kids lay in bed until our clocks said the magic hour of 6am - if we could manage to hold on until then. Sometime in the middle of the night, Mom would have crept into our rooms toting a huge stocking stuffed full of crinkling, Christmas paper wrapped, wonderful little gadgets and geegaws to keep us amused and buy a bit of time before the parents were forced into the "gifts under the tree" unwrapping ritual.

I remember laying in bed, my stomach tingling with anticipation, staring out the window at the star filled night, holding my breath in hopes that I would still be awake when Mom tiptoed in. I should have been exhausted after the caroling, hot chocolate and Christmas sugar cookie fest, the late hour of the Christmas Eve service. Some years, I managed to stay awake long enough, watching through the tiniest slits in my eyelids as I faked being asleep, breathing heavy and regular to help with the subterfuge of being long oblivious to happenings in my room that I caught Mom cracking open the door of my room slowly and peeking in to see if I were asleep.

Then she would tiptoe quietly to the foot of my bed and gently lay the crinkly, bulky stocking next to the bed rail, check me again just to make sure she had not disturbed me, and tiptoe out, quietly closing the door behind her.

I would lay there until I was sure she had finished delivering all the stockings to all the rooms and gone back down the stairs, back to a late night snack with Dad who was still putting the finishing touches on the tree. First, I would stretch my leg down until my toe touched the lumpy stocking. If I wriggled just right, I could feel the outline of the various gifts, and count them. It was always so bulging, bursting at the seams with promise of good stuff. Then I would pull the blankets up over my head and wiggle around until my head was where my feet had been, and I could get a better sense with my fingers poking and probing. I didn't dare come in direct contact with the thing, or I would have to unwrap something, just to tide me over until morning. That would have been a disaster.

It was excruciatingly difficult to fall asleep, but after many minutes of speculation, trying to guess what sought-after surprises might lie within the confines of the red flannel, in mid thought somewhere, I would drift off and dream of wonderful things. Despite my late retirement, my internal clock always roused me at 5:30 am or so. I would lie there debating whether I should quietly turn on my light and start unwrapping, or if I should wait until the permissible 6am to dig in. Usually at about 5:45 one of my brothers or sisters would bound into the room, gleefully shouting, "Look what I got!"

Miffed that they had already unwrapped all their stuff, I would rip into mine, barely realizing what each present was before I was on to the next one. There was no being quiet about it. Mom and Dad obviously knew we had jumped the gun, but they tried to ignore the faulderaul as long as possible. Finally, unable to contain our joy, we would burst into their bedroom, brandishing something from our stocking, yelling "Look what I got!" as if she had not carefully purchased and wrapped each precious item.

Mom usually shooed us out of the room and downstairs where she joined us, trying to get us to eat breakfast as if it were any other day. We were tightly wound springs waiting, waiting, waiting until Dad got up - never before 10 am - and s-l-o-w-l-y ate a HUGE breakfast - how could he DO that to us! Eggs and bacon and pancakes and grapefruit and raisin bread toast and cranberry juice and coffee. We endured every agonizing bite until he was satisfied that he had tormented us long enough and moved into the living room for the tree unveiling.

That home is long gone, we kids all grown, some with families of our own, our parents' house too small to accommodate the entire clan. Most of the things we did together as family don't happen these days. Going to Mom's for Christmas, though so important, doesn't feel like going home anymore. Family, yes. Comforting? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Something I look forward to and treasure as a privilege - yes! But its not going home. Its moving forward with life. Changing relationships, relating to my parents on a whole new, enjoyable level.

And home? These days its wherever I am. Wherever I can be myself and participate in activities I enjoy (and even some I don't). I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and that you spend it doing something you truly enjoy with people you love. The best home places are where I sense that tingling anticipation of unexpected joy - those little stocking stuffers that, while not of huge monetary value, make the day ever so much brighter, enriching my life and giving me something to share with the ones you love.

Look what *I* got - a whole day with my parents and siblings in a homemade A frame perched on the side of Bear Mountain in the Adirondacks, overlooking Lake George! How marvelous!

Merry Christmas.