Christmas was so good this year. It really was.
It was impossibly short, I've never had such a bad travel experience, and my mother had a cold that she kindly gifted the rest of us, but even with all that nonsense...it was just. so. good.
The in-your-bones-sort-of-good.
We ticked everything off the box. Christmas carols and sugar cookies. The traditional Christmas Eve dinner of appetizers and Love Actually. Midnight mass. A Christmas morning of kielbasa (to honor our Polish roots) and champagne (because why not?). We spent as much time as we could around the tree and even more around the table. We gathered in the kitchen and made meals together.
My parents are leaving this house--this house that spanned so much of my childhood--this house that none of us thought we'd be in for very long, but that now holds so many memories and dresses up so well for Christmas. So I sort of wandered around it, clicking away with my Canon, making tangible what I could of what I remembered.
It's a good last memory to have--this last Christmas in this house--it's a really, really good last memory for that particular place. Lots of twinkly lights and good food and the sort of love that gives the word home so much meaning.