One day you’ll blink, and your kids will be grown.
That’s the adage I’ve been hearing from my folks as they welcome more and more grandchildren to the family. They’ve said it for years now, but it’s all finally starting to make sense. When I was a kid, time seemed to stand still as I stood by for jolly ole Saint Nicholas to leave the presents and take the cookie. I laboriously waited forever for December 25 to arrive. Now Aprils turn to Novembers in what feels like minutes, and those forevers seem like a lifetime ago.
I lived in a suspended adolescence longer than most. By my late twenties and early thirties, I was still stuck in that in-between phase, struggling in my career and barely able to make rent. I saw friends I’d grown up with purchase homes, have kids, and become their parents while I was still saving quarters for my local laundromat. We’re never where we think we’ll be.
Last year, I finally did grow up a bit, right on schedule for what life had planned for me. I moved into my first house, which almost didn’t happen because, spoiler alert, moving is expensive! We made it work, and when Thanksgiving rolled around, my parents decided to join me and my boyfriend for the first Turkey Day in our new home, flying in from Ohio for a West Coast holiday, complete with light rain and unusually high temps.
“I thought we’d get a sunny holiday in California. What’s with this rain?” Dad asked.
“It rains here sometimes. Last Christmas, it poured all day,” I replied.
“Better than the snow,” Mom added.
Over pumpkin pie, our worries floated away, and Mom started telling us all about her time caroling as a young girl in northeast Ohio. One year, she put a nightgown over her winter coat to look like a holiday angel, but the candle she was holding caught wind at a neighbor’s house, and her nightgown went up in flames during the opening of “Silent Night.” She used the snow to contain the flames and missed out on any serious burns, making it the perfect comedic tale to tell around the dinner table. This book is filled with my holiday stories, but we all have our own. No one escapes unscathed.
Mom and Dad reminisced about what it was like to walk past the tinsel that covered their childhood trees, static electricity forcing the decor to cling to their Christmas outfits. They remembered visiting Santa at Higbee’s department store, Mr. Jingeling (a Cleveland mascot), mornings opening gifts with their siblings, and the special dollhouses and drum sets their parents had given them to make the holiday happy. I know now that I’m older that with those good memories comes a lot of sadness. As visions of loved ones lost to time float through your mind, you’re reminded of how much their spirits filled the rooms adorned with poinsettias and eggnog each year.
After the final bite of pie was consumed and the last of the dishes was cleaned, Mom and Dad packed their belongings and started to leave for the airport.
“Dinner was perfect. Thanks for having us, Danster,” Mom said.
“Love you both! See you next year,” I shouted back, knowing I wouldn’t get to see them again until after the next ball dropped.
As they got into their rental car, I noticed Mom had left her bag inside. I grabbed it and ran out, waving them over before they drove off.
“Wait! You forgot your bag!” I yelled.
Dad parked the car on the side street, then rolled down the window, and I saw their eyes red from the tears that already streamed down their faces. They tried their best to hide the waterworks until after they got in the car, a tradition that started when I went away to college and continued like clockwork at all our goodbyes. They’d get in their car, or I’d get on a plane, and once I was out of view, they’d start crying. Occasionally, they slip up, and I catch the sadness on my shoulder from a hug goodbye, but no one tell them I told you that.
“One day, you’ll blink and wonder where the years went,” Dad reminded me through tears.
“We love you, my sweet son,” Mom added.
I joined them in crying as I watched their taillights get farther and farther away. Another year over. Although it was the first Thanksgiving in my new home, I knew the lasts were right around the corner, and it finally hit me. A blink ago, we were living under the same roof, and in a blink, I’ll be their age, telling my kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews the holiday stories from my youth as we bite into our pie. I’ll tell them about the first time I hosted my parents for dinner, the lump will form in my throat as I talk about how fast time moves, and I’ll bawl as I say my goodbyes, trying my best to wait until I’m out of view. I hope that at the back end of their blinks, the memories will be merry and bright, and when they sit with their children and grandchildren, friends and loved ones, they too have a story to tell.
Hopefully, their stories will be just as perfectly imperfect as the rest of ours. We’re not always carving a glistening cooked bird around a Pottery Barn dining table or trimming a ten-foot-tall tree with popsicle stick ornaments and candy canes, and December 25 isn’t always the Hallmark snowscape we’ve been sold since we were kids. We don’t always have people to share our holidays with, and sometimes we’re surrounded by people we don’t like all that much. We’ve all lost loved ones and gained some others along the way, but there may be years in between when we’re all we’ve got. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re preparing for a special day of crying under the covers instead of caroling with hot cocoa. Maybe you’re dateless on New Year’s Eve or going through a breakup while your buddies are buying engagement rings. Some holidays will be joyful, others won’t, but we just need the number of good years to outweigh the bad in the end.
As important as it is to hold on to the memories, it’s equally crucial that we let go of the impossible standards we set for ourselves every time fall turns to winter. The ideal we’ve been promised doesn’t exist, but your perfect kind of holiday does. I’ve worn snow boots to trick-or-treat; there are times morning show anchors sweat from high temps during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade; and in December, all the romantic holiday movies look like the inside of a snow globe—fluffy white flakes swirling around the screen—but we often get the mushy stuff instead, the kind that usually forms as spring creeps in. Sometimes it rains on Christmas.