TLTAJ

Growing up, a lot of people, hopefully most people had a “home” they wanted to be at or see on the holidays. Growing up, we moved a lot so “home” was always our Nanny and Papa’s house. After Papa passed, the Duke House where Nanny moved with our Aunt became “Home”. I was blessed with the opportunity to help with the house’s remodel as a second job while the Twins were on their way. Lots of memories made, and the place always felt like that “holiday home”. I was fortunate enough for over 20 years to have the same feeling and experience at my former in-law’s. The holidays weren’t the holidays if we didn’t celebrate there.

With a big family, and two locations cemented as the preverbal “home” for me and the kids, our house never had the same “home” feeling on the holidays. That also could have been in part to remaining in the same home after their mother left for half a decade. We moved though, and when we did, my mom and brother moved with us and we had this new place to try and blend holiday traditions and make new ones.

I would be lying if I said it didn’t come with challenges and compromise, but slowly we started to forge and cement our new traditions and our house became a home. Holidays continued to be shared and split on the bigs one between the formerly established “home”s as began to take over all of the ones in between.

Fast forward several years and we were back to blending and creating new, all while balancing new places to go when my wife and I married. At this stage, my wife’s daughters all did not live at home with us, but mine were still here. While we may have had aspirations to begin lots of new ones, we learned that too much change was not ideal, so we met in the middle as much as we could and figured our way through it.

This year has been a lot for the family with health challenges, milestones, and growth. One of ours at home moved out, and others invested in rebuilding and improving things in their relationships with their other patents and family. So with all adult age kiddos, with he exception of a couple 17 years old it has been different dynamic.

This stage or season in life has been surreal from the perspective that we are seeing our kids experience adulthood, and we can see ourselves and our journeys in theirs. It’s a lot different than relating your childhood to theirs, there is a depth to it that is as joyous at times as it is intense at times. I think similarly, the realizations of your parents’ experience through your own as parents comes with all of the feels, and the same polarity.

The transference of “home” from one generation to the next is not a milestone you really ever give thought to, and one you don’t celebrate or commemorate either. I am not sure it’s anything that you ever see having occurred before it has after the fact. I am thankful for this season though. Change is scary sometimes, it can be intense, leave you feeling off or uneasy at times, but change is investable and a part of life. Like in all aspects of life, change of some form is inevitable. The unknowns are what make it all an adventure.

Hope all those reading have enjoyed the beginning of this holiday season, and that you’re able to be present and enjoy the memories you’re making at “home” wherever that may be. As long as you are with those you love, and who love you, the where matters far less than the why.