Take the long way home…

It was so much easier when we were kids. I didn’t have to remember directions, to turn off the lights, to close the refrigerator door, pay the electric bill, get gas in the car. I thank God I had parents that did that for me. I am blessed to have had a set of great, responsible parents, they created a wonderful, meaningful family and childhood for me.

I’m feeling sad, or just melancholy today. Maybe it’s because of the snow and my brother has been on my mind. Seeing the Christmas lights in the snow is just beautiful and it brings back my childhood memories. In my mind, it was a white Christmas every year. It probably wasn’t but that really doesn’t matter does it? If I remember it that way, it must’ve been. I remember always going over my Aunt Edythe and Uncle John’s house in Robbinsville, NJ on Christmas Eve. I always remember my dad asking my mom if she wanted to take the long way home to see more Christmas lights in the snow. It always seemed the same amount of time but it was different on Christmas Eve. Us kids would lay down looking up through the back of the station wagon looking for Santa and his reindeer. Every plane in the sky had my dad yelling, “There he is! There he is!” I would usually question why Santa had lights on his sleigh. My dad would always have an answer for me, so the planes wouldn’t crash into him, so he could see where he was going… and so on. Whatever answer my dad gave me I accepted as the God’s honest truth. Him and my mom were probably laughing their butts off over me and my questions.

It just seemed easier back then. The golden days. If you have young children, make it easy for them, teach them well, they will always remember now for years to come. Make it easy for them.