We put up the Christmas tree today.  It’s two days to Thanksgiving, but for some reason I really wanted to get it done and over with. 

As we were cleaning, unpacking, and setting things up, I turned on Christmas music on the computer.  A song came on that has often made me nostalgic, but for some reason this year it sent me into a pensive reverie.  Perhaps because this year I am not alone in my familial exile as my best friend continues to experience her own personal hell with extended family and while my family woes are approaching twenty years of age, her’s have only recently ruptured and she is still very raw.  The lyrics…

I’ll Be Home For Christmas…

I’m dreaming tonight

Of a place that I love

Even More than I usually do

And the home that I know

Is a long way back

I promise you.

I’ll be home for Christmas

You can count on me

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents on the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me

Where the love-light gleams

I’ll be home for Christmas

If only in my dreams.

I’ll be home for Christmas

You can count on me

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents on the tree.

Christmas time will find me

Where the love-light gleams

I’ll be home for Christmas

If only in my dreams.

I’ll be home for Christmas,

If only in my dreams…

There were years when this song brought pain and wistful longing, but for many years, it has brought to mind only good memories of recent years, years of happiness and blessing.  Today, they merged… the wistful layered on the blessing… For the home of my memory and dreams is indeed a long way back, long gone, if it ever existed but in my mind. There is no going back… and yet the home of my dreams is become reality in my home today, in my own immediate family… This reality has long since superceded the pain of the other, and so it is also my prayer for my dear friend, that she may find the blessings God has given her now bear her up in this hour of need and that she finds herself soaring on the breath of dawn, all pain but memory, drowned in blessing.