I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and got most everything they wanted, or at least what they needed. Sometimes the needs are all that need be addressed.

This was my 24th Christmas, so very hard to believe. It feels like so many and yet seems too few. Age does a funny thing to us, it makes us begin to realize the things in life that aren't so important, and some how highlights those things that have been important for so long, yet went unseen.

Every year I get incredibly excited for Christmas, as I'm sure a great many others do as well. When I was younger I used to sleep all the time when December rolled around because as long as I was sleeping, time went a little bit faster. I know it seems odd, but it oddly makes sense. I've never been able to sleep on Christmas Eve, I seem to get far too excited for the next day and so all I do is toss and turn for a few hours until my eyes can no longer stay parted and hopefully catch a couple hours of sleep.

Christmas morning is always fun, but it's changed over the years. Instead of running out of bed at 6 in the morning and waking the parents so that we may dive into the new found toys, I now take my time. Stop to have breakfast first, and enjoy the company of my family before moving into the family room to open presents. It's simultaneously exciting and sad. All the presents look so wonderful under the tree, and I'm very curious to see the new things I've gotten, but I most certainly don't wish it to end. This is way for many years I stock pile my presents while others open. And when it is time to open, I peel each individual piece of tape away carefully and uncrease the paper to slowly reveal what lies beneath. It's my own way of making Christmas last.

This year, like many past, I received a great deal of things that I wanted and I'd like to say thank-you to all of you for the wonderful presents, I'm honestly grateful! But it seems that Christmas is something more than it used to be. It's a chance to see my family whom I've lived away from for six years now. It's a time to go home. The houses are always decorated lovely, and are so inviting and warm in the winter. The trees always look magnificent. I love being home. I like spending time with my mom, with my dad, with my step-dad and my step-mom. I enjoy the day we spend with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It's odd to remember Christmases past with so many youngins running around crazy like. Those days have now passed and we are most all much older now, able to enjoy the time we get to spend together, the time that always moves too fast and is always too short. This is the new Christmas. The gift of family and time that we get to spend together, the love that we share and the comfort of going home. I somehow feel that no matter how long I live on my own, in my own place, it will never really be home. My home will always be where my family is, both of them. From the house I grew up in to the house I never really knew as it was after I came to college that my mother moved there. It's still home. I hope many of you were able to go home. I hope you were able to be with your families. I hope your Christmas was merry and filled with love and loved ones. I hope your presents were lovely, and your memories glorious.