Tis the Season

The holiday season. Filled with happiness, warm drinks in mugs, fireplaces, and most importantly family. Family. Thanksgiving came and went and I could feel a tension throughout the holiday. It was like everyone had things that they really had on their minds, but no one wanted to bring it up. So instead conversation was filled with the pro football game on tv and my school work. Don't get me wrong, I like talking about football and school is great, but I was missing a vital part of my Thanksgiving this year.

I remember Thanksgiving last year. I was worried about it slightly because I was going to be getting my new truck after I had wrecked my Tahoe a month ago and my parents had no idea I had been riding a bike around to get to work because I was too stubborn to ask for rides to work. I flew in to Charlotte and was supposed to meet up with Tim right before heading to the front of the airport to get picked up by our Dad. I walked up to him wearing my birkenstocks with a pair of washed out sweat pants and a paint covered Presbyterian Disaster Assistance shirt. Being my brother, Tim was wearing khakis and a button down he then proceeded to make the comment that I looked like a homeless person. We went straight to the Starbucks in the airport and got drinks for ourselves making snide comments the whole way towards each other showing our affection in our own way. How much I missed that this year. How much I would trade to have been able to fly into Charlotte again only to get off the plane to see my brother. I missed him so much this Thanksgiving. He probably would have had a fit about how we held Thanksgiving this year. I could just hear him saying "...like a bunch of hicks who just fell off the truck." I wish nothing more than to have been able to go get ice cream with him, or coffee, or just go drive around and listen to Pink or Kesha, whoever he was listening to. There were so many wishes this past Thanksgiving.

December starts tomorrow. It will have been 5 months tomorrow. It will also be my Dad's birthday tomorrow. Too many things on one day. I'm fully planning on skyping my Dad tomorrow and catching up some more with him. However, in the back of my mind I will be thinking of the 25 days to follow tomorrow. Whether or not I will get home and see Tim's stocking hanging on the mantle next to mine. Whether or not we will hang up his "Baby's first Christmas" ornament on the tree. Whether or not we will get out of bed on Christmas morning at 8 like usual or just wait until lunch time when we are all too hungry and we have to start the day. Whether or not I will be able to do my favorite thing on Christmas, the one thing that reminded me of Christmas spirit the most in my house: setting my alarm at 2 or 3 in the morning just like Tim to wake each other up, climb down the stairs as quietly as possible, and get our stockings. We would then go to one of our rooms and show each other what we got. We have done that for years, but I don't know if I can do that this year. I don't know if I am strong enough. I don't know if I can go to the extra late service at Church on Christmas Eve and then go out into the pavilion and sing "Joy to the World" with a candle in my hand. I don't know if I can sit and listen to my Dad read us the Polar Express and The Night Before Christmas before setting out cookies and milk for Santa. I know I am not strong enough as I am typing all of this. I am not strong enough, but as a family we are. My Mom, Dad and I will make it through this holiday season, because we are not just a family, we are the Lipka family. As crazy as we can be sometimes, and as frustrated as we can make each other (especially when certain members drop their Bio class and change majors) we are strong enough to get through this together.

There was a bible verse shared with our community house last year in New Orleans. "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." This passage is from Ecclesiastes 4:12. December will suck this year. However, I have a three stranded chord: my friends, my family, and my brother who may not be here physically, but is with me eternally.



Happy Holidays