HEART OF STEELE
They say the best Christmas is a family Christmas, and I feel fortunate to have grown up with many of those. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but in this season, my parents usually found a way to bring us back to the people we loved and didn’t always see during the year.
The Christmas I remember most, though, is the one where my family hadn’t been together for weeks.
While my dad attended school and worked in the Cities, my mother worked and corralled four children in their tiny hometown of Hoffman. As the oldest–I was a high school sophomore–I did a lot of babysitting and other chores. Having shopped for groceries with food stamps, I had a pretty good understanding of our family’s tenuous financial situation.
My parents had always been focused on “the reason for the season.” They kept up the tradition of an advent wreath for years, and the Christmas story came before gifts–which were never extravagant. That Christmas, I knew, would be exceptionally lean.
But as the day drew near, it was starting to look like Dad, who worked in the grueling world of long-term care, might not make it home.
We all went to bed Christmas Eve without him there to say good night or read the nativity story, a long-time family tradition.
The best gift that Christmas morning was waking up to find Dad in the living room. He looked pale and thin. He must have been exhausted, as he drove home in the middle of the night, but he grinned from ear to ear as we hugged.
Though I can’t remember what was waiting for me under the tree that year, I can still see my dad sitting in a rocking chair with his family around him. And I’ve never forgotten the lesson: that presence is the best present.
Wherever and however you spend your holiday season, I hope you're with the people you love. And if you can’t be, I hope you still hold them close in your heart.