What Is Home For the Holidays

An old song “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays,” brings to mind the pleasure and the conflict inherent at this time of year  through Christmas, Hannukah, New Years, and the related holidays for many groups and religions.  Pleasure comes with reestablishing old ties.  Conflict can come with reminders why some old ties were broken or strained.  What is home and how do we know we are there?

We might even drift into another issue as we consider the New Year.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?

The idea we have in mind is that we want to be happy but does happiness belong to one time of year or one frame of mind?  It might be that happiness is so elusive we need to find another anchor, the anchor being to find meaning wherever we are.  Home can really be where the heart is.

An older article from the magazine “The Atlantic” recently found its way into my Facebook feed.  There’s More to Life Than Being Happy declared Emily Esfahani Smith, January 9, 2013 citing Viktor Frankl, a prominent Austrian Jewish psychiatrist who spent three years in a Nazi concentration camp.  Frankl discovered that, among those who survived those terrible times, those who found a reason for their living were the ones most likely not to give way to despair.  While happiness depended on outside conditions, a belief in meaning went deeper.  He included these observations that he also used to keep himself going in a landmark book published in 1946, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

I bring this up because I know people who live under difficult conditions, even people who are struggling through hospitalizations or living in nursing homes, who are able to find meaning wherever they are.

Years before I became an elder law attorney I was a volunteer at a local nursing home.  One lady I visited, appropriately named Doris Gayhart, entertained when she spoke.  Although, because of a brain injury she was unable to live outside a nursing home for many years, she always kept up her spirits.  She did it by listening to other people and sharing her stories.  I was not her only non-family visitor.  People were glad to come.

We can live in a home where our children were raised and grandchildren play or we could spend holidays in a place where more security and assistance are needed as in a personal care community.  We might have many people visit or few with whom to celebrate.

Many feelings compete for our attention.  What we expect and what we receive are often two different things and I am not just talking about gift giving.  If we expect the perfect turkey dinner or the perfect apology, they may not be there.  Appreciation might not lurk under the Christmas tree.

How we deal with the gap between what we have and what we wish we could have helps to define who we are as people.  In the movie “Lincoln,” Daniel Day Lewis as the late president repeats an oft cited quote for his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.  “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  I expressed somewhat the same idea by saying  “We never get to be happy by thinking about what we don’t have.”

If we decide to accept what is and deal with it, while not saying that it is easy or that it is what we want, we are likely to be happier and to look for and find meaning wherever it is whether in giving or learning or somewhere else.

What is home?  Home is a place where we feel comfortable, where we can relax and be ourselves.  It may be with parents or spouses or partners or children.   Home could even temporarily be with strangers with whom short term connections are forged.

Nothing will ever be perfect and stay perfect.  No one can ever be there all the time even if he or she wants to be.   Sometimes we realize this much later.

Traditional families are changing.   When we wonder if we are going to be home for the holidays, maybe we already are home and do not realize it and if we cannot be at the place we know as home we can call (or even write or text) and share our thoughts with whoever needs us to be at home with them, too.

Happy Holidays.

About the Author Janet Colliton

Esquire, Colliton Law Associates, P.C. Janet Colliton has practiced law for over 38 years, 37 of them in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Her practice, Colliton Law Associates, PC, is limited to elder law, Medicaid, including advice, applications and appeals, and other benefits planning including Veterans benefits, life care and special needs planning, guardianships, retirement, and estate planning and administration.

follow me on:

Leave a Comment: