12/21: Home For The Holidays.

There is no other place I would like to be than home for the holidays. After my 6:20am flight out of New Orleans was cancelled yesterday due to the Nor'Easter which dumped record levels of snow up the east coast, I finally arrived home this morning. My parents did an amazing job with decorating the house with all of our jovial christmas decor. I usually like to be a part of the "decking the halls" tradition, but because I was arriving only three days before Christmas, I preferred to arrive home to an already joyful house. The tree is one of the best one's we've had in years, the nutcrackers are proped in their cordially bellicose stance, the porcelin carolers are caroling and the candles are all lighted. My mom surprised me by putting colored christmas lights around the two pillars in my room. In the four years we've lived in this house she has never done that; I guess she really missed me.
Besides hugging my parents and going to the bathroom, the first thing I did when I got home was put mulling spices on the stove--cinnamon, cloves, allspice berries with pieces of orange peel simmered in water--in order to heighten the holiday ambiance. I find it tough to get in the holiday spirit when I'm travelling in a van for hundreds of miles a day far, far, far away from your family. My holiday spirit is slowly gaining momentum now that I am home and by Christmas it should be fully restored.