If holidays are about traditions, one thing's clear; Christmas will be celebrated at my parents' house. I have spent only two (of 37!) Christmases elsewhere. I was raised in small town Western NY where trees lining Center Street twinkled with lights and the empty lot down the road was frozen over for ice skating during winter months. As in, someone filled it with a garden hose and the neighborhood kids walked over, lacing up their hockey skates. So far north that you can see Canada at the end of the street and snow was almost a given on Halloween. Idyllic? Not always, but generally speaking, yes. 

This house is my childhood. Where my dad played Neil Diamond on the record player and my mom ate a cookie for breakfast every morning. Where my little sister slept with me in my bed for years because I didn't like to sleep alone. Then later where I kicked an actual hole through her bedroom door during a fight (about She-Ra? Barbies?). 

The house we gathered in the morning of my wedding. Where all four of my parents' grandkids will have spent their first Christmases. Where my dad was when he suffered the stroke that killed him. Where I slept with my mom the day he died. They weren't all good times, for sure. But they are all ours. Our history is this house. 

How do you say goodbye to your history? This will be our last Christmas in our childhood home. The For Sale sign goes up March 1. Sure, those memories live inside of me and don't simply disappear. But there is something about walking into this house that evokes such strong images, scents, sounds. Despite all the times of struggle, I feel such love emanating from those walls. I feel a deep sadness that I will no longer walk in through the front hall and picture my dad sitting the family room, getting up to give me one of his bear hugs.

A new stocking will be hung this year, before the boxes are packed, for the newest addition to our family, my beautiful 6 month old niece. I'm a person who tends to experience losses more significantly than joys, but I'm hell bent on soaking up this last Christmas for all the imperfection that it will be.

So this is my love letter/goodbye to, as Miranda Lambert calls it, The House that Built Me.