Cherish the time you have with your family!

Kris Campbell
MC 301 Contributor/Staff

The holidays are here and families are reuniting everywhere to celebrate life and special occasions. Tables will be filled with delicious dishes from oven roasted turkey and ham to macaroni and cheese and so much more. Many of us will definitely be putting on the pounds.

But what do the holidays mean to you?

For me, it’s a time to be thankful for everything. It’s a time to be thankful for God, family, life’s highs and lows and everything around me. I can remember growing up in the small town of Livingston, Ala. My early childhood holiday experiences were amazing.

We would wake up to the world’s most delicious aromas of my mom’s southern cooking with music blasting all throughout our home. My dad was a DJ at the time. I remember receiving the gifts I told my parents I wanted leading up to the holidays by hinting here and there.

My sister and I were nosey kids so we found our gifts days before the actual holiday. It had its advantages until we found out that Santa was really our parents after we found gifts under our parents bed before Christmas and then woke up to the same gifts under the tree. Let’s just say Christmas was never the same.

So, at that point, early on in our lives, holidays were about fun, gifts and music but then the focus shifted.

When I was about 13 years old, our home was shot up while I was in it. We found bullets on my sister’s bed but thankfully her and my mom were not at home. This prompted my mom’s decision to move my younger sister and me to Mobile, Ala., the day after the incident. So, of course, this split our family. We began to experience holidays without our other siblings and not receiving the material things we were accustomed to because of this situation.

The most we would get was a phone call with the proper salutations and the memories of what holidays use to be for us. The distance between our intermediate family masked what the holidays were all about and to us it seemed like we were missing out.

This all changed when I was 15 years old.  My older brother, sister, and I were hit by an 18-wheeler in an automobile accident, and my brother lost his life. After experiencing holidays without him, it was then that I realized what was really important. It wasn’t about what I received; it was about sharing those times with the people you love.

The loss of my brother pulled my family closer together and made us cherish our loved ones more and not take things for granted.

I encourage all of you when you reunite with family to cherish those times. They are good for the soul.

I guess we can all agree that the holidays mean different things to different people but we all agree that they offer times for us to be with family, give back, and celebrate life.

That’s what the holidays mean to me.