Christmas came wrapped in the biggest of boxes with the most beautiful of bows this year.  There was a lot to celebrate: the engagement, my parents coming to town, families getting together, our last planned holiday season in the city.

I know my parents worry about me for a variety of reasons.  Moving to New York put a huge one on their list, but over time they’ve come to accept and even embrace my life here.  They arrived last week to throngs of people and freezing temperatures, and I decided it would be a great idea to walk their asses all over midtown.  I had warned them before they left the South to bring warm coats, gloves, scarves, hats, and water-resistant walking shoes.  Mom interpreted that to mean a long heavy coat with a hood that wouldn’t stay up and suede knee boots.  Dad’s take was golf gloves, a baseball cap, and a two-inch-long scarf.  After walking from the Waldorf to Central Park, spirits were reasonably high but beginning to wear.  After walking from Central Park down Fifth Avenue, Dad’s makeshift head-wrap was coming loose and Mom had given up on the hood and the question “Are we there yet?” had forever transferred from my kid vocabulary to their New York one.  After walking from Fifth Avenue to my neighborhood, happy hour got bumped up to NOW and we settled in at the bar of the restaurant, waiting on the BF to arrive.  Which brings me to the second thing my parents (used to) worry about.

Two years ago, Mom and Dad made their first trip to NYC for Christmas.  I was fresh off the realization that the now-BF and I would be forever friends and God was tending my heart with the care its rawness needed.  I was rushing to Penn Station to meet the ‘rents, already stressed about getting them to their hotel and to the restaurant and to the Philharmonic, all through crowds of people and some of my least favorite neighborhoods (Times Square) and subway lines (1-2-3).  As I waited for them outside New Jersey Transit, I looked down and realized that I was wearing one black boot and one brown.  I briefly considered breaking down right there on 32nd and 7th, then had a better idea.  I pulled out my phone and texted my friend and future husband the details of my footwear.  It was a shot in the dark punctuated with fears of awkwardness, but it was rewarded moments later with a perfect response and the assurance of a friendship spared.  I knew things were going to be okay.  But just how okay, I had no idea.

That year, my parents and I were a trio in the city, visiting Lincoln Center and Redeemer and Soho, then trekking out to New Jersey to visit my sister and brother-in-law and his extended family.  Who have become my extended family, or my Yankee family as I like to call them.  This year the pairs evened out and my match was with me.  Except for on Christmas Eve day, when Sis’s mother and sister-in-law and Mom and Sis and I hit Saks for bridal gown try-ons, then the Waldorf for celebratory champagne.  It’s hard to imagine a more magical day, and for once in my life I’ve stopped trying.

The season, this year and two years prior, culminated in the descending of all our families upon that house in New Jersey.  Two years ago, I checked my phone regularly for texts from friends, one in particular.  I settled into my single status, perfected by years of attending church, parties, and holiday functions without a partner.  I had pretty much stopped feeling sorry for myself, had encouraged my parents that I was perfectly fine on my own and even feeling pretty sincere about it, had gotten over the early-mid-late-twenties bouts of desperation over ever finding someone and the accompanying heart-gripping loneliness.  I had reached a level of peace and gratitude with who I was, where I was, and who I believed was taking care of me, boyfriend or not.

But still…there was a bit of an ache now and then.  An empty spot that I only know now was marked “Reserved.”

This year, BF at my side, I trudged through the snow with the rest of the family across the street to the backyard of Nanny’s house and its frozen pond.  There’s something in the stillness and whiteness of snow that invokes a quiet so calm it is almost sacred, like it’s just you and your God hanging out.  Even with a dozen people around.  Even with your gloved hand in someone else’s.  In that stillness, the meaning of Christmas that I pray to realize every year descended on my heart like a snowfall.  The scene became a house of worship.  I thanked God for not letting my heart freeze over in all those years of flying solo.  Of sitting at the table as the only single save the kids and my thrice-divorced uncle.   Of worshipping him in a church with empty seats on either side of me.  Of a finger with no jewelry on it. Worshipping is always both a solitary and communal thing, and I thanked him that I have known both.  I thanked him that two years ago, I knew nothing of what would be happening now, and that I only had him to go on.  Because there is a richness and love to be found in trust that can’t be found anywhere else.  I took one last look at the white scene, said a prayer without words (the best kind), and walked with my fiance back to this year’s Christmas.