Home for the Holidays

The holidays are here. Everyone wants to be celebrating with family, with friends, with co-workers, with your partner’s co-workers, at stadiums and in theaters.

Whomever we’re with, wherever we find ourselves, we want to feel that holiday warmth and belonging. We all want to feel at home.

For the last few years actually getting everyone home was made difficult by the pandemic. It wasn’t enough to have crowded airports and winter storms. We had vaccinated, unvaccinated and unable-to-be-vaccinated people to consider. This season add to that fewer and more expensive flights. Zoom helps. But let’s face it, Zoom is great for work, even for yoga, but not for watching your niece open the gift you so painstakingly chose and wrapped. So, how do we feel like we’re at home even when we’re not?

To paraphrase Glinda, the Good Witch, you’ve had the ability to go home all along. You can fill your kitchen with the aromas of the season and invite your neighbors in for an evening. Not a cook? You can donate your time to a soup kitchen to dish out holiday dinners with all the fixings. You can find a local charity that shops for needy families and put your heart into shopping for gifts that will be opened, cherished and appreciated on Christmas morning. You can send care packages to deployed soldiers. You can do all this and still enjoy your traditional celebrations – in person or by mail.

The key is that your home is in your heart, especially at this time of year. When you can make others’ holidays happier, it will make you feel good, too. I sincerely hope you get to enjoy the season side-by-side with your loved one. But, even if you can’t, you can find new ways to click those ruby slippers together and fill yourself with the holiday spirit. Caring and kindness come back to you as soon as you share them with others. You are your home. Make it a warm, satisfying one this December.