JDFP
24-Dec-2010, 07:10 PM
Hey Folks:
Let me just take a moment to wish each and every one of you here a merry and blessed Christmas. I hope you have an opportunity to spend time with your loved ones and families today and tomorrow especially.
We all celebrate (those of us who do) Christmas a little different. I know my cousins watch an old VHS video of "The Statler Family Christmas" every year. I'll be watching "A Christmas Story" (You'll shoot your eye out!) later today and calling some loved ones and hope to see most of them tomorrow. But, for me, as a native Tennessean who loves my state as my home more than anywhere else, this video and the poem I wrote below earlier today really sum up my feelings.
GmJISA7rFjo
Coming Home for Christmas
24 December 2010
The coffee in the thermos is hot,
the heater is keeping me warm,
the radio is giving me heart,
but I'm still cold all the same,
missing my home on these vast roads.
The 18-wheels below me keep going,
if only I could push this semi faster,
but all the snow and ice accumulate,
making this journey all the more hard for my soul.
But no distance can chain me from my family today.
I'm over a thousand miles away, my loved ones.
But, in my being, I'm coming into Knoxville now.
I can see the road sign for I-40 now.
Here I exit off the interstate onto those familiar country roads.
In my heart, the truck is coming up the long driveway now.
Lee Greenwood's "Tender Tennessee Christmas,"
comes on the radio like a lost signal from a distant land.
Here I can see the Smokies, clear as a winter day.
Here lay the valleys and streams,
from the great Norris Lake to Beaver Dam stream.
I have no shame in saying a tear touches my old beard now.
Know that the road goes onward and onward still,
but in my thoughts I'm coming home to you all now.
Granny's biscuits and gravy are on the stove,
the uncles all dressed in their sweaters,
the kids all shaking from excitement 'round the Christmas tree.
The radio is filled with Burl Ives and peppermint in the air.
Though this road goes onward into Omaha now,
know that here in my heart, in all my soul,
I'm coming home to you all now,
and home has never felt so much like home,
since my being away in this vast cold.
For all my loved ones, and all your loved ones, here and away for Christmas.
j.p.
Let me just take a moment to wish each and every one of you here a merry and blessed Christmas. I hope you have an opportunity to spend time with your loved ones and families today and tomorrow especially.
We all celebrate (those of us who do) Christmas a little different. I know my cousins watch an old VHS video of "The Statler Family Christmas" every year. I'll be watching "A Christmas Story" (You'll shoot your eye out!) later today and calling some loved ones and hope to see most of them tomorrow. But, for me, as a native Tennessean who loves my state as my home more than anywhere else, this video and the poem I wrote below earlier today really sum up my feelings.
GmJISA7rFjo
Coming Home for Christmas
24 December 2010
The coffee in the thermos is hot,
the heater is keeping me warm,
the radio is giving me heart,
but I'm still cold all the same,
missing my home on these vast roads.
The 18-wheels below me keep going,
if only I could push this semi faster,
but all the snow and ice accumulate,
making this journey all the more hard for my soul.
But no distance can chain me from my family today.
I'm over a thousand miles away, my loved ones.
But, in my being, I'm coming into Knoxville now.
I can see the road sign for I-40 now.
Here I exit off the interstate onto those familiar country roads.
In my heart, the truck is coming up the long driveway now.
Lee Greenwood's "Tender Tennessee Christmas,"
comes on the radio like a lost signal from a distant land.
Here I can see the Smokies, clear as a winter day.
Here lay the valleys and streams,
from the great Norris Lake to Beaver Dam stream.
I have no shame in saying a tear touches my old beard now.
Know that the road goes onward and onward still,
but in my thoughts I'm coming home to you all now.
Granny's biscuits and gravy are on the stove,
the uncles all dressed in their sweaters,
the kids all shaking from excitement 'round the Christmas tree.
The radio is filled with Burl Ives and peppermint in the air.
Though this road goes onward into Omaha now,
know that here in my heart, in all my soul,
I'm coming home to you all now,
and home has never felt so much like home,
since my being away in this vast cold.
For all my loved ones, and all your loved ones, here and away for Christmas.
j.p.