This is Christmas

I have to allow myself some autonomy.  Usually, autonomy is not something you must allow yourself.  But I am my greatest dictator.  I am the one who is making the decisions, here.  I'm old enough to choose where I go, who I spend my time with, where I invest my heart.  Christmas is the hardest time of the year for me to do this, because of a deep-seeded obligation I feel.  But over the past four years things have slowly unravelled.  We have all grown up and apart and away.  And I find myself standing in a tangled mess of old traditions and requirements and twine for tying.

So I break the rules a little.  My own rules.  No one else's.  No one is really disappointed when I don't show up on time.  How narcissistic, to think I am always missed when I'm not present.

After four years of adaptation, I have freedom that I don't often embrace.  I am suddenly, that family member.  The one who comes late and dips out early.  I understand why he did it so many years ago now.

Yesterday I ate omelets at my mom's.  We opened just a few presents and then I left.  Short, sweet, and only a little Christmasy.  I was supposed to be on Severn Way next.  But I took a turn instead and prayed as I drove up a quiet street in my favorite neighborhood.  If I pray hard enough, they'll be outside... I thought.  Even as I whispered my prayer, I topped the small hill and saw them running around in the front yard.

Merry Christmas to me.

I parked and was bombarded.  By hugs and kisses and "miss yous" and the prophets running to the front door, brand new Nikes on each of their feet.  I spent only a little time there, with little girls dangling off my limbs and pulling at my clothes.  The big boys acted like they didn't want to be hugged, but they stayed.  They stayed until I left.  I kept saying, "merry Christmas" and they kept saying, "it's not Christmas yet".  If only they knew.

Then it was on to my Grandparents'.  The only house I have a serious emotional attachment to.  I walked in the door and almost ran into Grandmom, who was sporting a horrible bruise on her face from a fall the night before.  My Granddad was serious and quiet and detached, and I bolstered up my heart.  In myself, I felt this knowing.  A deep knowing that said, this would be the last year we did this.  He helped her climb the stairs in their age-old dance.  Sadness and age lingering behind them like a strong cologne.

Pictures, food, some gift giving.  And then Olivia sat down at the piano.  Thank the Lord I was sitting there, curled up in the big chair.  Tears welled as she played.  Looking like Larry.   In a face that really looks nothing like his, she set her jaw and set her eyes on something I have never been able to see.  Playing something by memory, something from her own fingertips. And she played.  I begged her not to stop.  This, this was home.

I left there early too.  After a big, hilariously awkward family photo.  Over the years, the size of the Vaughan family on Severn has dwindled.  But along with the unravelling that's happened, new members have been added.  And how well chosen they have been.  Seamless.

Quickly after, I went to a Christmas Eve service at a place I once called home.  Cried as they highlighted a ministry I work closely with.  And waited patiently through renditions of old Christmas songs, until I could get out.  Candle wax dripped down my hand as my eyes were drawn to the diversity in the room.  I knew where I needed to go now.  I knew where I'd find Christmas.  And it wasn't there.

To see them.

The rest of them.

Darkness highlights every fearful aspect of the ghetto.  Even Christmas lights cannot dull the ominous shadows that hang there.  But my heart does not feel it.  Light shines brightest in dark places, and I watch it go before me as I walk up to every door.

Three.  Their hair cut fresh.  Kisses and dish washing and mama on the phone.  This was a good idea, I knew as soon as I saw them.   I could have stayed there all night, and I think they would have let me.  I wanted to sit on the floor with the one who looks old.  Just sit there and watch Christmas come together.

At the next house, I knocked.  Hearing the shuffling inside, the familiar "who is it?", followed by the loud: "It's Miss Anna and Miss Chloe", and the immediate throwing open of the door.  He's getting skinny.  In the growing "up" phase, which comes before the growing "out".  Last week, I took him home sick.  He still has the remnants of it, dry lips and glossy eyes.  I gave him chapstick and tickled his baby cousin.  Lots of hugs and odd looks from a grown uncle.  We are strange to them, in our comfort and our boldness.  But every once in a while, I see a glimmer of acceptance.  A sweet opening of a door.

He came to the door in a robe.  He's mine, this boy.  A special part of my heart belongs to only him, because I chose him.  Out of the crowd, out of the chaos of a lunchroom, he wriggled his way into my attention.  This family wouldn't let us in, they never do.  So we hugged over the threshold.

After visiting at least eight of them, Chloe and I piled back in the car.  I don't know how we fit, swollen hearts and all.  But we did.

I found out that J and C ran to Keyaira's house this morning.  Excitedly proclaiming that their best Christmas present was seeing Miss Anna and Miss Chloe the night before.  Arguing about who got the better hugs.

This, this is Christmas.

It's been quiet this year.  More alone time than ever.  Chinese food and Redbox movies, quiet slipping aways.  It wasn't until tonight, after going to see the traditional movie with my family and Cass, that I felt the twinge.

The deepest twinge.

No tears this Christmas.  Just a deep, cold ache like I've been out in the winter wind too long.  A quiet asking, a subcutaneous loneliness.

It was not a bad day, this Christmas.  Not bad at all.  But Christmas stirs it up, sending it all down like snow in a snow globe.  Catching the light, falling back to the floor.

So we begin the quick descent to the new year.  And on my breath is a bold dare.