A Christmas Pearl

If youth is for questioning everything, middle age is for building upon a foundation of sacred traditions to echo through the generations.

“Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow.”

Fate won’t allow it, actually. Loved ones die. Feuds break stubborn people apart. The economy carries the youth away to start new families in far off places, where they themselves become middle aged, decorating a tree by a distant fire.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving. The day we pull out the boxes and decorate.

My husband and I met in Evanston, Ill., in 2004! At an open house for Northwestern’s journalism school. I thought he was cute. He thought the same.

And here’s me two decades later, tying ribbons on the bannisters, by way of New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and all the places I’ve lived. And here’s him, hefting the tree through the front door, by way of Michigan, various US military bases, two bouts with cancer, and all the places he’s lived.

And here’s us, preparing for our 18th Christmas in Seattle, with these three new people we created. We adore them. They try our patience. They inspire us to give a damn.

It’s a lot of work, you know, tying all these bows of red, green, gold, awe, reverence and nostalgia. Unwrapping each ornament from the tissue paper, like opening memos from my year-ago self. Hanging lights and sweeping up needles, and stringing together Christmases like pearls on the strand of life.

My mom did it for me and she didn’t live long enough for me to thank her, so I’ll do it for them. How many do we all have left, with all of us together? What will the fates allow?

You never know when it might be your last good Christmas. These ordinary moments are the most extraordinary. How cozy is a hung stocking? How sweet is a maple coffee by the fire? How moving is a lit up tree? It’s important work, creating a home.

“Hang a shining start upon the highest bough. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.”