On Family

Love wasn’t a great, burning brushfire that swept across your soul and charred you beyond recognition. It was being there, simply that. It was a few people, standing together in a living room, trimming a Christmas tree with the decorations that represented the sum total of who they were, where they’d been, what they believed in.

-          Kristin Hannah

You know what amazes me? How humans can love. After everything we go through, how we are still willing to bare ourselves to another person just for the sake of love. We bring our families in and get them attached to someone and they just embrace that person (most of the time). A complete stranger, not related by blood, is accepted as part of another family.

I am lucky. I spent Christmas with my husband’s family and then after Christmas, we do dinner with my family. At both houses, the love and acceptance is overwhelming. As I sat at the table, following Christmas dinner with his family, I felt the love. His family is dealing with a tough situation, and the way the family banded together immediately was so impressive for me. They were willing to do whatever it took to make life easier for someone else. If there was a problem, they would help. No questions asked. I felt blessed to be part of such a family that cared so much about each other.

At my parent’s house, I sat, Indian-style on the floor. My mom was to my left, my brother was behind me to the right, and my dad was in front of me to the right. My husband sat directly in front of me. We had piles of presents in front of us. My mom had just crocheted a blanket for our dog and gave it to him for Christmas. The dog took the blanket and made his bed in it on the floor next to me. He curled up, in his new blanket, his back touching my knee. We were a family. We were content, and again, I felt blessed.

I read that quote in a book this past week and it resonated with me. I thought of my husband and our tree in our little condo. We have ornaments from the college we both attended. We have ornaments from each place we’ve been to together: Chicago, Minnesota, Denver, Detroit, Cape Cod and more. We have ornaments that resemble our little beagle. We have “our first Christmas” ornaments, we have an ornament with our first Christmas as an engaged couple, and we have a family Christmas ornament that we received this year. The tree is us. It’s not him, it’s not me, it’s us. It has a few soccer ball ornaments and it has Star Wars ornaments. It has a Cubs ornament and a Brewers ornament. We are different people, but we come together and make a family. Our family.