Expressing my love for the Thanksgiving/Christmas Season
First of all, I know it has been a really long time since my
last post. It’s insane to me that the last time I hit the little orange “publish”
button for this blog, the most viewed post had only a little over a hundred
pageviews. When I think back on that crazy week of my summer, I am still
overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and recognition I received for my letter
to Detroit.
That said, I’m back! Junior year swept me off my feet with
all the work and extracurricular that appeared from the very first day of
school onward. Now, as the first semester begins to wind down and my teachers
are panicking and talking about exams, I am finding myself very reflective, and
with Thanksgiving approaching fast, I have so much to be thankful for.
In October of 2014, an electrical fire broke out at my
house. I never knew how devastating something like that could be. I like to
think myself a spiritually grounded person, and I think most of the time, I am. But as a sixteen-year-old girl growing
up in lower middle-class, 21st-century America, I can be pretty
materialistic. Losing nearly all of my clothes and most of my possessions while
trying to navigate my sophomore year of high school was not easy. Life at home
became increasingly difficult, because tensions ran really high. Moving is
stressful when you are prepared for it. Imagine having to pack up a house that
is smoke-damaged, waterlogged, and half ruined, all in a weekend. Having to
sort through and clean everything, on top of buying new things and handling the
many generous donations we got, on top of moving into a too-small-for-us home…well,
overwhelming is an understatement.
That was just over a year ago now, and earlier this month,
we finally got to go home. I am so joyful to be back in our house. The house
that I call home may not look like much, but it was my safe haven when I needed
that more than anything else in my life. It represents a stability that I am so
grateful to have. There are still boxes everywhere, and we aren’t nearly as
organized as we would like to be, but we’re getting there. The house is
starting to feel like ours, more than it did even before the fire. I think an
experience like that is such a teachable moment. Being back home, I take so
much more ownership and pride than I did before. I can’t take it for granted
anymore, because I know what it’s like not to have that. I never appreciated
our 1,200 square feet more than I do now.
The holidays have always held such significance for me. I am
one of those people who absolutely adores Christmas. It arrives 23 days after
my birthday each year, so the month of December is always a joyful time for me.
When I was younger, we would spend Thanksgiving with my Maw-Maw, and holidays
without her are always hard. But as I prepare for Thanksgiving this week, which
we are spending in our home, I am beyond grateful. I love holiday preparation;
the food, the decorations, the music. Thanksgiving afternoon was always spent
decorating my Maw-Maw’s Christmas tree, and I love that tradition. It’s things
like that, in my opinion, that make the holiday season so special. There’s
endless nostalgia surrounding Christmastime, and I relish those sorts of
things.
So this week, we are working through the boxes to make
shopping lists, and organizing cabinets to house groceries. We’re making room
for Christmas decoration, solely for the tradition of it (my family and I aren’t
even staying in town for Christmas this year), and I’m setting the Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day Parade to record on the DVR because for my dad to miss the
football game would be treason in the Mattheis house, and we can’t have that.
On Thursday, I will be making a pie from a recipe that I have never needed to
write down, because my Maw-Maw taught it to me when I was so little that I had
to sit on the counter. This coming weekend, I will get to hang all my ornaments
on the tree, and hang my stocking, and put the jingle bell collars on my dogs.
We’ll put out red candles and change the scent in our wax warmer to something
more Christmas-y. Soon, I’ll get to start wrapping Christmas presents, and we’ll
make Christmas treats and I’ll wear my candy-cane earrings.
All of that is happening, and this week, I am so much more
thankful for what I have than I can recall ever being. I am truly blessed,
despite my struggles, and because of them. So I take this opportunity to wish
you and yours a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving.
