I'll be home for Christmas-

-and this year, not just in my dreams!

Since 2003, we have spent Christmas in the cities.  Having a store at the MOA made it impossible to leave. On Christmas Eve, Mike and Charlie and I would head out to the mall around noon and send our staff home to celebrate with their families, and we would run the store until our required closing time of 6 pm. 

Christmas day would be spent in our pajamas, reveling in the fact that our store was closed, we had no gift card orders to mail out, not a thing to worry about.  We would enjoy our Christmas gifts, and call our families, and try not to be sad.

We would begin to recuperate from working a million hours the rest of the month, and literally being too tired to even fathom the thought of a four hour drive on winter roads.

But this year, due to sales trends and employees looking for more hours, and not minding working on Christmas Eve, we are going home.

It won't be a long visit, but we will be there for the important things.  Time with our families, moments shared over gifts and good food, and celebrating my sister's Christmas birthday.  I can hardly wait.

Each year when I would hear Doris Day singing that she would be home for Christmas, it always made me tear up.  But this year they are tears of joy.

Because I will be home for Christmas.

May your holiday be all that you wish for, and may you find peace in quiet moments spent with family and good friends.