Home for the Holidays

“Oh there’s no place like home

For the holidays, ‘cause no matter

How far away you roam

If you want to be happy in a million ways

For the holidays, you can’t beat

Home, sweet home”

I’ve always liked the words to the famous Christmas song “No Place Like Home for the Holidays.”  But I don’t think I’ve ever really appreciated the truth behind the words - perhaps you have to roam out of state to completely understand the million ways  you can’t beat home sweet home.

For all of New York’s majesty, there is nothing there like Mom’s Christmas fudge or the sound of the choir singing Handel’s Hallejuah Chorus (which we watch every Christmas Eve on an old VHS tape).  The smiles seem to be a bit wider on the greeter’s faces as we walk into the Christmas Eve service; and at least for a few days it seems we forget about the tumbling stock market or the pile of work at our desk that somehow magically gets done next week anyway.

We’re thankful to have such a lengthy visit to North Carolina this Christmas, which will include “another” Christmas Day on January 1st when we celebrate with the Millers and Huitsings.  With such a long break, we are able to see a ton of familiar faces.

Like today when 14 guys got together for the 2nd Annual Day After Christmas Flag Football game.  The inaugural matchup last Christmas became an instant classic, and the first emails regarding this year’s game were sent months ago.  The vast majority of the participants are Western Guilford graduates from the last 10 years.  While some of us have been friends for more than 20 years, there are quite a few guys who I haven’t seen or heard from since last year’s game.  And yet we’re inexorably linked by our common past, and the fact that we’re all glad to be back together again.

For more than three hours we engaged in one of the ugliest displays of touch football the Gate City has ever seen.  But for every wounded duck pass and missed tackle there were ten times as many laughs.  The best part is that for the 2nd year in a row we somehow escaped at game’s end without a major injury - though between the guys who played there was nary a hamstring or groin muscle that had made it out unscathed.

So though I can hardly walk right now and my jammed thumb is screaming for some Advil, there’s no other place I’d rather be.  It looks like tonight will have to be a slow one spent sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire - in other words, home sweet home.