I’m happy to report that the family has successfully rescued a pine tree from the cold and scary forest to live out the remainder of its days in the comfort of our living room. Lovingly adorned with festive lights, and a 25-year menagerie of ornaments, it will no longer be forced to live in constant fear of teenage squirrels carving their initials into its bark and necking among its boughs.

The tree is safe now, and we shall cherish its company forever…or until the first week or so of January. Whichever comes first.

Times when the whole family is able to be together can be hard to come by, but thankfully, this year it worked out. As the four of us drove through the Black Hills, I looked at the kids in the rearview mirror and wondered when the next time might be that we will all be together again?

I often took something as simple as the family being together in one vehicle for granted when the kids were little. All of us moving in the same direction, our plans linked, our time shared…seemed as if it would always be the way. Until it wasn’t. As Robert Frost wrote in his poem The Road Not Taken, “way leads on to way”. So it goes.

Of course, we all know that being together in one vehicle with young kids is not always enjoyable for adults blessed with the ability to hear. There are many moments you would just as soon not revisit in mind or body. Moments when driving became difficult due to the blood rushing to your clenched hands and jaw. Moments when the only thing keeping you from throwing yourself from the moving wagon of whine was the fear of scuffing your favorite shoes.

The kids aren’t kids anymore, the bickering is mostly nonexistent and generally in jest. They are adults trying to make their own way, and I am grateful for such. Grateful for their gains, but occasionally a bit melancholy for the losses. It is of course better to have had the time and lost it than to have never had it, so I am sure to savor the times we get together. Gratefully savor the time in the moment, so that moment is more likely to be available as way leads on to way.

So, for now, we’re together. The kids are decorating the tree, hanging ornaments from all the years past. Ornaments of varying shapes and themes that represent whatever it was that was “big” in their lives at that particular time. Cinderella, Spider-Man, sports, travel, Buzz Lightyear and beyond.

As their lives expand the time we get together contracts. That is the way of it for families. That is part of the deal. I’ll let Mr. Frost take this one home…

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.