In 2006 we started a new tradition. After the end of the Christmas Eve service, we get into the car and we drive about 12 hours, arriving at my mother’s house around 9 a.m.
I took this picture last year, and my mother turned it into a Christmas card for us this year.
Now don’t be upset if you don’t get one, it will no doubt fall on Tracey’s shoulders to send them out and there are a limited number of them.
This is my best picture ever. I’m sure it’s far from perfect and someone who knew photography could have done it better.
But this is the picture I carry in my head while we’re driving home on a night where even the 18-wheelers are off the road.
It wasn’t posed, Ethan was looking at the lights, or looking at the snow, or both, and I’m not even sure that he knew I was getting ready to take the picture.
This is what I think of when I think of Christmas: sitting by the big picture window in my mom’s house, especially if there’s Christmas music on, or maybe even more so if it’s totally quiet.
It wasn’t Ethan I used to imagine looking out that window, it was me I used to remember looking out that window as a kid.
There’d be a huge tree in the corner, no doubt far too big for the room. It would be decorated within an inch of its life, and underneath would be enough presents that you’d have to look hard to see the tree skirt.
There’s the ancient manger scene in its ancient shoebox and even more ancient tissue paper wrapped around the pieces.
There’s the knit stockings, each one with the names of the three kids on them, that have been around since before my memory begins, each one stuffed with stuff, and most of it wrapped, to add just that much more enjoyment to the day, just that much more anticipation and surprise (yes, even when the “surprise” looked remarkably like a can of shaving cream, or a box of toothpaste, or stick of deodorant.
My childhood was imperfect, as almost everyone’s was at times, and my childhood was wonderful, as almost everyone’s was at times, but this picture — first with me, and now with Ethan — reminds me of the best of times, the best of moments, the best of family and friends, the best of life.
It had, as you probably guessed, nothing to do with the presents, although I never turned them down of course.
It had everything to do with moments like these, when whatever else was going on and had gone on and would go on later seemed to just disappear.
You can’t manufacture them, you can’t recreate them, and if you try you’ll fail.
All you can do is enjoy them whenever they come along.