We can grow apart from friends and family we don’t see that often. Christmas Eve 2016 is a chance to reconnect with family and see friends.
Christmas Eve 2016
“With the joyous Christmas season comes a longing that fills the breasts of countless thousands–a longing to be back home again. Even to him who has been long been lost to its sweet influences, to the most abject and pitiful wanderer, come visions of a happy childhood, heart-choking recollections of someone near and dear back in the mist of years–an irresistible desire to be back again, somewhere, some place.”
Kin Hubbard in “Abe Martin’s Almanack” (1908)
I remember going home to St. Louis one Christmas for a family reunion. Our first meal together was in a restaurant and my brother was just back from an overseas work assignment where he had grown a beard and mustache to better fit in with local customs. I didn’t recognize him at first: he walked in wearing sun glasses for driving in sunlit snow and a new jacket and it took me more than a few seconds to recognize him as he walked toward our table.
Bid Every Strife and Quarrel Cease
“What is more beautiful than a Christmas reunion at home where the hand of death has been merciful and the little flock, scattered for years, gathers again under the old roof–mother, father, and all the children?”
Kin Hubbard in “Abe Martin’s Almanack” (1908)
We can grow apart from friends and family we don’t see that often. People change and adapt to different local circumstances, grow in response to new experiences, and age unless they die–at which point they become ageless. My father told me once that he didn’t see the passage of time as much in his adult relatives but the children always reminded him how much had changed in a year. And so it is with me.
Merry Christmas.