Christmas has a way of making time feel elastic, pulling us back into earlier versions of ourselves. That pull felt especially strong for me this year. It was the first Christmas I didn’t spend any time in my Indiana hometown, so it was the first time the holiday felt fully divided between where I come from and where I live now.
For many of us, especially those around my age, going home for the holidays means briefly moving back into our parents’ houses. Suddenly you’re sitting at a familiar table, hearing the same arguments and stories you’ve heard for years. Old habits reappear. You catch yourself reacting in ways you forgot you once did, slipping into a version of yourself you thought you’d left behind.
Christmas tends to do that. No matter how old we get, how far we move, or how many adult responsibilities we carry, something about being under a parent’s roof invites a kind of regression. Houses remember. Where you danced to a favorite song, where you cried harder than you meant to. Those memories, and the people we were when they were made, tend to show up whether invited or not.
