The only place worse to be than Times Square on New Year’s Eve, is Christmas Eve at the Dickson, TN Walmart. And here I am.
It’s about 7:30 pm on Christmas Eve, 2014 and the store is absolutely packed. I’m waiting in a long checkout line holding a frozen bag of Walmart Great Value southern-style hash browns.
2014 had been a year of significant change. For the past 10 years, Barb continued to pine for her home state of Tennessee. We had agreed to move there in the future mainly because she had family there and it was a tax-friendly state.
By the end of 2013, I was ready to move. Most weeks I’d drive to the BWI airport and fly to other states for work. The DC/MD/Northern VA (DMV) area was full of consultants like me, all fighting over the same scraps of work, so I took my show on the road.
I was disillusioned with the area. It was expensive, crowded, and very unfriendly. We began looking for land in Tennessee to build on.
After four trips to Nashville to meet with our realtor, we decided on our current property in Vanleer, which is about an hour south of Clarksville. There was a house on it that Barb didn’t like, but the 32 acres were beautiful. I was ready to move right then and there, but our daughter Allison was just starting high school.
We purchased the house with the intent to move after she graduated high school, but I didn’t want to wait. Our house in Maryland was big and beautiful, but I was tired of the neighbors. One set constantly bragged about their vacations. The neighbors next to them had four strange kids and were the poster children for the movement that home schooling does NOT work for all kids. Then we had a neighbor from Ghana who would have loud, all-night parties with her massive extended families. The final straw was when I noticed the screens around our house had all been slashed. Now we were vulnerable to break-ins as well.
I hatched a plan. Barb was disillusioned with her job after retiring from the Navy and wanted to start a career as a financial advisor. Our son was a freshman at The Ohio State University so I figured if I could convince Allison to move, we could move NOW!
Over the past few months, I’d made several trips from Maryland to the house moving some of our furniture. I would try to stay in it at least once a month to mow and check on things. My in-laws would also help. I asked Allison if she wanted to fly out with me in June when school got out for a few days, then accompany me on a business trip to California. She agreed.
She loved the house and land. It also helped that if she moved, she could get her driver’s license in a few months, rather than 18 months like in Maryland. She agreed she could move. We called Barb together and she wasn’t happy. She was banking on staying in Maryland for three more years. For the first, and probably last time, I asserted my authority and insisted we move now.
Barb is still pissed about that today. And reminds me constantly that she misses her house in Maryland.
Allison started school in August which sucked since her summer break was about three weeks shorter in Tennessee, but she quickly made friends. Things went well for a while, but I think both she and Barb were a little homesick. Allison wasn’t used to living in the country. We had Verizon Fios internet in Maryland, but here we had weak cell service and satellite internet, which is slightly faster than dial-up was in the old days. In the first night, Allison used up all our data watching a movie on her phone.
When Christmas season neared, the sadness was more profound. Barb loved our big house in Maryland, particularly decorating it for the holidays. My parents would usually spend Christmas Eve sleeping over, then Christmas morning was just the six of us and then usually some of our friends would come over in the afternoon for dinner.
But this year was way different. Dustin was home from college and clearly didn’t want to be here. This house was never home for him. The in-laws were coming over, but that registers a zero on the Christmas Fun Scale since my mother-in-law was in a perpetual bad mood. The house didn’t lend itself to fancy decorations, but considering we lived in the country, nobody would even see them anyway.
And then, on Christmas Eve, at about 6:00 PM, something happened that set fire to the Christmas dumpster. Allison asked me about our big traditional Christmas morning breakfast.
That was OUR thing. Even when she was younger, her and I would put together a massive breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and for just this one time a year, hash browns.
But I told her we probably wouldn’t do it because it was just the four of us. Plus, I didn’t even have any hash browns.
And then all hell broke loose. Allison went into an epic meltdown. I think it was just triggering a lot of pent-up sadness and frustration. I knew then that somehow, I needed to save Christmas.
Which leads me stand in a long line waiting to check-out for a single bag of frozen hash browns.
As it happened, the hashbrowns saved Christmas. But I learned a lesson. Maybe two.
Lesson #1: Realize that certain things, even little things, can mean a lot to people. Even if they seem insignificant to you.
Lesson #2: When you find those certain things, be sure to include them in your celebration. They may not mean much to you, but like those hashbrowns and Allison, they might mean the world.
Happy holidays!