i'll be home for christmas

Tonight I attended a church Christmas program. During one part, they dimmed the lights and--over the sounds of a couple singing "I'll be Home for Christmas"-- showed a slide show of local church members who are serving missions or in the military. At the very end, they paused on a picture: It was a scene of the Huntington Beach pier at night--all misty with ocean and lit up with oversized snowflake lights hung on the lamp posts. It took a minute for it to resonate with me--they had paused on that picture because, for nearly everyone there, that was "home." That was the place those who were away in Peru and Iraq and Tennessee would be thinking of and missing this Christmas.

And it was now my home, too.

While the familiar brown-grey, snow-dusted foothills of Boise, the dry cold in the air, and the outline of the brick-sidewalked downtown twinkling in white lights will always be in my heart, I really am excited to be in a new home. Excited for the opportunities here to make new friends, new memories. Have new adventures. Bloom where I'm planted.  And while it is hard to separate the word "home" from a location, a scenery, a  familiar four-walled abode--I have learned (yet again) that Home really is less about a place and more about those you are with. Home is familiarity, tradition, routine--yes, but it is also love, acceptance, trust, laughter. Portable things.

My boysquad flies in on Christmas morning to join Mr. Perfect and I in the place that will soon be their new home as well. With the money spent on the move, the wedding, and tweaking the house to be able to fit all of us--there won't be anything but filled stockings this year. Yet I still can't imagine having any better Christmas than this one will be. After a month of being away from them, I will have the children I adore, the man I adore, and his girls I adore all together. In my arms. Piled in a big, warm pile on my lap. Yeah--even Mr. Perfect will probably hop in on that :)

So while I am away from the only home I've ever known, and still adjusting to this new home, I truly can say I will be home for Christmas.

 You can plan on me.

May you all sleep in heavenly peace.

xoxo,
~Jennifer P.