My Christmas cactus always blooms when the boys come home. It did not bloom this year. This year is different. It even feels different. Not everyone is home this time. Nor will they be here all together in any one place. It makes me feel sad. I get it now. I understand why as you get older, the holidays can be difficult. I fill mine with as much family and friends as I can, but something is not quite right. We have always had traditions that we follow. For some reason, this year those traditions are almost all “out the window.” I didn’t even make it to midnight Mass this year. That was always a given. No matter what, I made it to church. I know I will go in the morning, but it will be different.

      This evening we were at my sister-in-law’s with family for dinner. We had a wonderful time. It was so good to see my niece and her fiancé who were in from Florida for the holiday. My brother-in-law’s sister and husband were there, too. We told stories, laughed, and talked about Christmas’s long ago. We passed around old photos and shared with the kids stories about what it was like when we were kids. Somehow the 60’s never felt so long ago as they did today. We heard, “I remember when…” and “Do you recall…” as we looked at faces in faded pictures of people we remember vividly in our memories.

      I miss my family that can not be with us this Christmas. Sometimes it even makes my heart hurt.