Home for the Holidays

I can not conceive of any other place to spend Christmas than in Pocatello. As beautiful as Michigan Avenue is during the holidays, with the big FAO Schwartz window and all the lights on the trees and in the windows, or downtown Denver, with the Civic Center remade in every color imaginable, the capitol building glowing green and red, Pocatello is magical to me because it is so simple, as though George Bailey could run down any of our streets while Ralphie Parker gazes at his Red Rider carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle (with a compass in the stock) from one of the many display windows. The lamp posts that line Main Street and Arthur in downtown are still wrapped in garland and wreaths and the buildings look as though they were made especially for this time of year. People smile as they hurry along under the wide green awnings and I never feel quite as self-conscious whistling Christmas music here as I do elsewhere. The snow can render our narrow streets almost impossible to navigate with any speed and you can forget about parking, but I never feel the hustle and bustle of Christmas here like I do in other places. There is a serenity to Christmas in Pocatello that feeds me and makes me return year after year. Duncan and I have spent a great deal of time driving her streets and walking the road outside my mother's home admiring the lights and the silence, the soft jingle of bells that ring each time a door is opened and closed again, sitting in front of the fireplace in love with home more than ever before.

I suppose, though, that home is wherever my dog and I can sit together and enjoy the world, happy with the gifts we receive but also with those we give.