afterglow. 

noun [af-ter-gloh] 
the pleasant remembrance of a past experience, glory, etc. 

I am so unbelievably thankful that I got a week off to meet my niece and see the rest of my family during the busiest time at the saloon (seriously, thank you, Marcia and Amy!) I couldn’t have enjoyed it any more than I did. Baby Hannah is as precious as she is tiny. Toddler Jack was so fun, repeating everything and going a mile a minute, sometimes stopping long enough for Auntie Bethie to kiss his sweet little cheeks while he giggled. 

I was not looking forward to the airport crowds on the 26th. Who does?? The fun is over. The cookies are gone. Work is looming. And you have to be surrounded by hundreds of people feeling the same way. 

But here I am, on the first flight of my trip, thinking back to multiple sweet stories from the Tampa airport. 

After a few Christmas greetings, the lady at the check-in desk told me about her dad being stationed in Idaho and loving it. We discussed the 17° weather compared to the current 77° and she laughed as she said, “You can have Idaho all to yourself, sweetheart.” 

A woman who looked to be in her nineties was greeted by a man who looked to be in his twenties before going through security. He lifted her bag up for her as he said, “Please let me know if I can help you in any way.”

My coffee and I sat down next to a ten-ish-year-old girl and her dad. She was writing a song for her uncle. “I have fourteen lines written! I’ll take this part here out,” she pointed to her notebook as her dad read and smiled. 

“I hope he likes it!” she beamed to her dad. 

“He’ll love it, honey.”  

I thought about three-week-old Hannah writing a song for her uncle Spanky one day and my heart grew three sizes.

The gate seemed to only have enough chairs for 30% of us, so we squished in, sat on the floor, and leaned against our luggage. A stunning blonde was on the phone with her mom, speaking about four decibels too loudly. Normally, I’d be thinking, ‘just go walk around and chat and don’t make us all listen to your conversation.’ But this sweet girl was in love. She was telling her mom every detail of Christmas with her boyfriend’s family. She could not possibly control her volume as she said, “AND MOM, WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR THIS PART!!!” I looked up from my phone and saw others smirking, listening along and perhaps remembering when they felt that much excitement about love. 

Maybe we are all basking in the afterglow of the holidays. Maybe as we wait to take off and are staring into space, we’re all thinking about eating BLT’s with our grandmothers, decorating sugar cookies with our fathers, losing in rummy with our brothers, shopping with our sisters, watching cheesy Hallmark movies with our mothers, losing track of time and closing down the bar with precious friends, or reminiscing about the ones we’ve loved so deeply and lost too soon.

Sometimes we don’t get to go home for Christmas and we have to muddle through somehow. This year, I’m so thankful I got to cuddle through somehow instead. It was a sweet, sweet trip, all the way through to the 26th.