I loved Kelly Hampton's post, Going Home, Coming Home. I wanted to share a bit of it with you just in case you don't make it over to her post. She went home to Michigan, she lives in Florida, for her Dad's retirement party. She reflected on a lot, but the sum of it was something like,".....t he need to be held up, to belong to someone, that never really goes away."

"Whether it’s holiday nostalgia or the evaluation of where we are and where we’re going at the end of the year, I think a lot about belonging this time of year. I want my kids to feel a strong sense of home, of belonging to this family and being loved by us. I cozy up everything—hang twinkle lights, play music, tuck them in at night with winter poems. Bake cookies, keep traditions, watch movies snuggled into the couch with blankets, searing memories into my own minds as well as theirs. At the same time, I feel my own needs to belong—I miss my family back home, I want my mom’s cinnamon rolls, I remember what it feels like to fall asleep with new pajamas, snuggled in bed with my brother and sister, waiting for the magic the next morning will bring. I think about what this all means—the holiday, the things I used to believe, the things I believe now. Who do we really belong to? I feel strong and secure in my uncertainty, in the openness of all the possibilities and yet this time of year, sometimes I miss the ceiling and walls of the church where I felt scared/confined/judged but also quiet/inspired, especially when no one talked, when candles were lit on Christmas Eve and the flicker of lights would dance on the stained glass windows. Where I could close my eyes and listen to the choir sing “Silent Night” and for a moment feel like I completely belonged…to what, I don’t know, but I felt it.

I feel sad especially this time of year for the people who don’t feel a place of belonging, and in my own little holiday quest to make my children feel warmth, to find my own warmth, I try and let that sadness seep in—to teach it to my kids—because it’s important. "