Home for the Holidays: Finding Meaning in a New Familiar

Photo: Kelsey Lechman

“Home for the holidays” once meant a predictable rhythm: suitcases in the hallway, the smell of something sweet in the oven, a house crowded with relatives who talked too loudly and hugged too tightly. It was a season shaped by ritual—stringing popcorn, rereading old cards and watching the same scratched-up movies that only came out in December. Even when the world outside felt fast, the holidays inside the home felt frozen in time.

Over the years, though, the idea of “home” has stretched and shifted. Families have scattered across greater distances. Some traditions faded as generations changed, and new ones arrived—virtual calls replacing crowded living rooms, Friendsgivings filling the gaps where extended families no longer gathered, digital fireplaces flickering on screens instead of wood-burning hearths. Travel grew more hectic, schedules more complicated, and for many, the holidays became less about returning to a childhood house and more about creating temporary havens wherever life had taken them.

Photo: Kelsey Lechman

And yet, despite the changes, something in us still aches for that familiar feeling—the one we remember even if it no longer exists exactly as it did. The nostalgia isn’t really for the specific rituals, but for the sense of belonging they gave us. We miss the comfort of knowing where everything was: the creak in the stairs, the mismatched ornaments in the old cardboard box, the way the house smelled after the first cold morning. These details live in memory like little lanterns, glowing even as time moves on.

Photo: Kelsey Lechman

Today, “home for the holidays” can be a place, but it can just as easily be a moment, a group of people, or a set of rituals we choose to carry forward. We build it in apartments far from where we grew up, or in the traditions we recreate with friends, partners and children. Sometimes we find it in the small efforts—handwritten notes, a recipe passed down or a familiar song played in the background as we wrap gifts.

Photo: Kelsey Lechman

The world may have changed, but our longing for connection hasn’t. Every year, as lights appear in windows and the air turns colder, we feel the same pull toward comfort and memory. We return not just to places, but to feelings—those warm, flickering reminders of where we’ve been and who we’ve loved.

In that sense, home for the holidays has never really disappeared. It has simply expanded, following us as we grow, waiting for us to notice it once again.

Addi Sires is the owner of Montana Expressions, a Bozeman, Montana luxury interior design studio and retail store specializing in the mountain high country lifestyle. Montana Expressions has been seamlessly blending modern and antique pieces for over 20 years. 

Content provided by Montana Expressions.