Home for the Holidays – Jenn Brooks

So I’m back home for the holidays, home being Mackenzie, a small town a couple of hours by car past Prince George, for what is supposed to be my last family Christmas in the house that I grew up in. I’ve been thinking a lot about home lately, and what the word home means. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been dreading the day that my parents sell our house in Mackenzie. I mean, I still get mail sent here and have a room full of stuff that I’m not quite willing to part with. My family has lived here for over twenty-five years. Almost my entire life has been spent in this small house on Grayling Crescent. This house is now filled with memories of Christmases, skinned knees, graduation barbecues, summers spent building forts in the back yard, and winters filled with sledding in the woods, snowshoeing, skating, and ski-dooing on the lake. So when my mom told me in the fall that this year would be our last Christmas at 28 Grayling I was somewhat uneasy and a little bit disappointed.

However, as the holidays have passed and Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone, I’ve been surprised at how I’ve felt. I’m not nearly as sad as I expected to be at spending my last holiday in my old house. I’ve realized that after three years in Vancouver (and Burnaby), I’m finally ready to call the city my home. Oh I’ll always be a small-town girl at heart and maybe even hold a small affinity for country music, but I really do feel at home in Vancouver now. I’ve even begun to miss the rush and organized chaos of the flow of people and traffic of the city when I’m away. Something else that I’ve realized over this past holiday season, (which I also learned at camp), is that it doesn’t necessarily matter so much where “home” is located for me. Just like camp, it’s not the place that makes home so special, but the people who are in it. I’ll probably always have friends and family to come back to in Mackenzie, but now I also have a great home in Burnaby with my cousin, her husband, and their dogs. I also have an incredible camp family that I can always turn to when I’m in need. So in this new year I’m excited to explore my new home and share it with my friends and family, old and new.