Here I sit in this Advent season missing home — but more than that, missing the version of home that only exists in memory now. Running as hard as I can with 40 hot on my trail like a debt collector with a crowbar. 2026 is staring me down, and with this year almost closed, I’m staring at something that hits harder than hangovers and harder than cheap theology: I’ve lived through 38 Christmases. And my math ain’t wrong. My memory just is.

I used to say most of my Christmases were spent at my Mama and Papa’s house in North Carolina. In my head, that house is permanent. It still smells like biscuits and wood smoke. It still sounds like old gospel humming through thin walls. It still has a front porch that bends slightly under your feet because good porches should feel like they’ve lived a life.

But the truth has teeth. We stopped going down there when I was around 11 or 12. At this age, the numbers blur together like melted wax. Time doesn’t disappear, it just gets meaner.

I still remember waking up in the dark, being loaded into a station wagon like cargo that squealed too much. The rumble seat in the back wasn’t made for safety. It was made for kids who didn’t mind smelling exhaust and fighting over who got the window that actually opened.

My younger siblings piled around me like feral raccoons in pajamas. I remember crossing state lines like they were sacred ground. I remember the first snow I ever saw in North Carolina. Tim and I were out there with brooms, playing broom-hockey on Mama’s front deck in our t-shirts like idiots in a survival documentary. Mama leaned out the door and told us we were going to catch our death like death was standing in the bushes sharpening a blade. She wasn’t wrong. She was just dramatic.

Or maybe she wasn’t.

Christmas Eve at my great-grandmother’s house wasn’t a party, it was a spiritual event. It had noise like thunder and hugs that knocked the wind out of you. I can still hear the way Aunt Lois used to laugh. Not a polite laugh. A laugh that sounded like she had survived things and still chose joy as revenge.

Bill and Lois come over that night every year. There are voices you grow up with that don’t leave, even when the people do. Hers still lives inside my memory like a song that won’t stop.

I remember the first Christmas in Vermont before my grandmothers moved to live closer to us. My grandfather was sick in his bones kind of sick, the kind of sick that changes the temperature in a room. That Christmas sits heavy in my chest. Not because it was bad. Because it was sacred in a way only pain can make things sacred.

Someone dropped a Sega Genesis on the front stoop during the party. No name. No tag. Just pure Christmas chaos wrapped in cardboard. We stared at it thinking Santa Himself had a delivered it.

The cooking. The visits. The noise. The slow, creeping realization that nothing was normal, but everything was holy anyway. Those aren’t just memories. They’re architectural blueprints.

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about with memories like that: They don’t just comfort you. They haunt you. Not in a bad way, more like a holy haunting.

Those moments carved promises into me that my kids don’t even know exist yet. They were snapshots of what Christmas should feel like long before I understood I’d one day be responsible for making it happen.

That ache I feel for those moments? That longing to be back there? That’s not weakness. That’s mission fuel. That’s the reason we kill ourselves trying to make Christmas feel warm. That’s why we stress about tables, food, lights, people, laughter, traditions, even when the bank account is crying and the calendar is trying to strangle us.

We’re not obsessed with perfection. We’re trying to recreate promise. We’re trying to take what was poured into us and pour it forward without losing anything along the way. And that is exactly what Advent runs on. Everyone sells Christmas like it’s magic. Lights. Gifts. Cocoa. Kids vibrating off the walls like ferrets on espresso and wrapping paper.

But Advent? Advent isn’t soft. Advent isn’t clean. Advent isn’t about vibes. Advent is brutal in the best way. It forces you to sit with silence. It makes you count the years. It won’t let you forget how long humanity waited in the dark for a promise to grow a heartbeat.

It drags your nose through the space between what was said and what showed up. And that’s where Jeremiah walks in.

Jeremiah 33:14–15, God Doesn’t Lose Receipts “Behold, the days are coming…”

That line isn’t gentle. It’s a fist through the air. God’s talking to people who feel buried alive. Jerusalem is wrecked. The lights are off. The future looks condemned, boarded up, and spray-painted with regret. And God doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t negotiate.

He declares: The days are coming. Not “maybe.”

Not “if.” Not “once you people get your act together.” I will fulfill what I promised. That verse is not poetry. It’s court-level language. That’s Heaven signing its name in permanent ink.

Advent only survives because of this truth: God’s memory doesn’t leak. God’s word doesn’t rot. God doesn’t forget what He said when your world turns into a junkyard fire.

We forget.

We edit things.

We rewrite history to protect ourselves. God doesn’t.

Matthew 1:22–23 — Fulfillment has skin on it “All this took place to fulfill…” Matthew doesn’t write that like a pastor. He writes it like a lawyer. Here’s the proof. Here’s the evidence. Here’s the sealed file. Jesus isn’t sentimental. He’s the living receipt.

God put skin on His promises and walked them into the world. He didn’t dodge suffering. He didn’t avoid mess. Fulfillment didn’t show up in gold. It came bloody, painfully and wrapped in cloth. It slept in a feeding trough. That’s not weakness. That’s terrifyingly strong. That’s a God who would rather bleed than break His word.

And Advent sits right there, in the tension of waiting and the shock of delivery. Psalm 130:5.

“I wait for the Lord… and in His word I hope.”

That’s not a soft verse. That’s not a mug verse. That’s not a Pinterest verse. That’s a man waiting with his jaw locked and his hands shaking. This kind of waiting is violent in the spirit. You don’t see the answer. You don’t feel the presence. You don’t hear the voice. But you refuse to let go. That’s Advent waiting.

Not pretty.

Not tidy.

Not aesthetic…. Just stubborn. Faith that refuses to keel over.

Here’s where I get a little mean, because it’s deserved. The Church has gotten real bad at memory. We talk about Christmas like it’s a decoration. We package Jesus like He’s seasonal. We skip the ache and light the candles like they’re scented products. We’ve forgotten that Advent is about passing promises forward.

The world doesn’t need a polished performance. It needs a memory handed down. Someone once made Christmas feel real to you. Someone gave you a glimpse of wonder. Someone showed you worship before you understood the word. And now we’re responsible to pass it on. Not with perfection. Not with fluff.

With honesty.

With tables.

With space.

With sacred mess.

That’s how people latch on. That’s how promises survive generations.

There’s a scene in Christmas Vacation that hits harder the older you get.

Clark Griswold, patron saint of good intentions and emotional breakdowns, gets locked in the attic. He’s surrounded by dusty boxes, moth-eaten sweaters, and a lifetime of things no one has looked at in years. He flips on an old projector and starts watching home movies of his childhood Christmases. Grainy footage. Crooked trees. Laugh tracks that look more like gasps for air. But he isn’t laughing at them.

He’s remembering.

And suddenly you understand why Clark loses his mind every December. Why he needs the lights perfect. Why he needs the bonus. Why he needs the family around the table. Not because he’s insane (though the jury is still out), but because someone gave him a childhood so loud with love and chaos and tradition that he can’t imagine Christmas without it.

Those memories weren’t just moments. They were promises. And I feel that scene deep in my bones this year. Clark’s sitting in the attic, crying over home movies because he understood something most people don’t:

The magic wasn’t the lights.

The magic wasn’t the presents.

The magic was that someone tried.

Someone made space. Someone built memory. Someone protected wonder. And now he’s trying to give that gift forward. That’s not foolish. That’s holy.

Here is the real heart of it, if you couldn’t tell from my last couple of post.

I miss home. I miss noise. I miss wood smoke and thin walls and front decks and death threats over no coats. I miss a version of Christmas that only exists in my memory now. But those memories aren’t dead. They’re marching forward through my hands.

Through my table.

Through my kids.

Through my stubbornness to not let wonder die.

Advent isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about remembering hard enough that you refuse to let the promise stop with you. God promised. God fulfilled. God will do it again.

And My/Our job? To remember so well that my kids don’t need to ache the way I do to believe it.

Somewhere underneath it all, we don’t wait because we have nothing better to do. We wait because we remember Someone who kept His word when the world was dark. We wait because we believe the silence, the silence has purpose. We wait because memory is faith’s oxygen. And Advent is this stubborn, sacred whisper in the dark saying: “God remembers. So do I. And I’m not letting go.”

Stay Salty