Do you have a special warm place? « Christmas « Teaching Good Things

Do you have a special warm place?

November 29, 2011

Tonight it is coooold in Alabama. My 87 year old grandmother from upstate New York is here visiting until January. She is so gentle and meek, I wish I could be like her!

Tonight we have Bing Crosby’s Christmas album playing, the aroma of popcorn popping all around me and listening to Jeff, the girls and my grandma play Rummy… LIFE.IS.GOOD! I’m curled up under a fuzzy blanket blogging. ;o) It’s just one of those moments that you wish time would just freeze, or at least move slowly hoping not to forget a second of it.

Bing Crosby’s voice puts me at 5 years old, laying on my grandma’s livingroom floor in the dark of her big old farm house in upstate New York. I remember looking up at a fresh cut Christmas tree from the back lot (as was done every year), draped with those multi- colored lights and silver ice cycles shimmering everywhere. Even though winter in the north is bitter cold Grandma’s house was my warm place, my very favorite place on earth…still is.

Smells and music are SO POWERFUL. A smell or a song can take me to another time and place. I hope our kids will remember and long for ‘home’ when they have homes of their own. I hope the smell of homemade sauce will flood them with memories.

I hope that I can create a home that our grandchildren will always remember as their ‘warm place’.

Cook homemade food that has to simmer or bake so that it oozes into every corner of your home, don’t fake it with candles and air fresheners.

Play pleasant music a lot! Play it softly. Play classic music that does not wear on the nerves. Play music that re-enforces your worldview.

Create traditions! Sing, play games, cut a tree, bake… create a warm home environment, one day at a time, one season at a time.