Becoming Home

We arrived back in the U.S. just ten days ago, after two weeks in Spain packing up what I had thought would be relatively few belongings, getting that house ready to put on the market, doing lots of paperwork for our leave-taking from that country, and making a quick stopover in Denmark on the way back to celebrate Johannes' 75th birthday with good friends and family. Our final trip from Europe to the U.S. consisted of a flight from Copenhagen to Oslo, a long wait there, another flight from Oslo to JFK, an overnight and transfer there to LaGuardia, a flight to Atlanta and then on to Indianapolis, and then a rental car from Indianapolis for the two-hour drive to Cincinnati. Such are the connections that one lives with when reserving late and traveling in December.

We walked, on December 12, into a house nicely decorated for the fall, with autumn-weight clothing hanging in the closets, and a stack of mail higher than seemed possible--I thought everything went by email these days, but I am wrong. During the past week I have gotten through the mail, replenished the refrigerator and freezer, done three big loads of wash, put away the fall decorations and linens in the kitchen and dining room and replaced them with Christmas designs--most of which were  newly purchased, because the ones I had sorted and sent home from Spain were not expected to arrive very soon.

Then, on Tuesday, we heard that our boxes had arrived. Twenty-one of them (the remaining two arrived the following day). The plan was to let them stay in my sister's garage until we were ready to unpack them--which would not be in the final week before Christmas. We did that, retrieving only two boxes: the one that I had designated to open early because it contained winter clothing, and the one that looked like it but did not contain the winter clothing.

This pre-lit Christmas tree seems to be a little
defective, and Guapa says it is not her fault!

This morning I packed away my fall clothes and replaced them with the winter clothing from the box. I also found a couple small treasures that I had stuck in between layers of soft material, candle holders that will add to the few Christmas decorations we have assembled. Then we went out to buy a few gifts and enjoy the winter solstice sun. I already have picked up much of the food I need to prepare the Christmas Eve dinner I am making for my family on Wednesday, but when I check the recipes again--the ones I picked out from a Danish magazine while flying across the Atlantic--I will undoubtedly have to make a couple more trips to the store.

I look forward to being able to make Christmas dinner for my family in my home for the first time in decades; I can't remember exactly the last time that all my sisters were together for the holiday, but it was in Florida when my parents were still alive. So this will be a unique occasion. Even next year will be different, because then, in all likelihood, we will be celebrating not in our temporary apartment, but in the condo that we entered into a contract to purchase on Tuesday this week. I'm not saying much about that yet, for fear something may go wrong, but if all goes as planned, we will have a very busy couple of months in the new year.

The twenty-one boxes in my sister's garage will stay there until they are moved to the new condo. But this is becoming home and we are home for the holidays. I hope all my readers are home for the holidays as well, whether physically or in mind and spirit.