Our “Fireplace”

Were we able to travel home every year for Christmas, and believe me when I say we would if we could, we’d celebrate with family, surrounded by beautifully decorated trees, laughing, telling tales, and exchanging gifts around a roaring fireplace. I’m not exaggerating when I say that our family Christmas in Ohio resembles something you’d see on the front of a Christmas card or as the final, heartwarming scene in a Hallmark movie.

Since Michael joined the Air Force in 2007 we’ve only been home twice for Christmas. And I miss it. However, we’ve gone out of our way to make lasting traditions with our children. Traditions that can travel. One of them is the hanging of our stockings. We’ve never had a fireplace in any of our base houses, but we’ve always hung them, along with a strand of lit garland, along the front of the entertainment center. It’s not as fun or cozy as a fireplace, but by playing one of those crackling fire videos on the TV Christmas morning we were able to pretend.

Last year Mabel was on the brink of crawling, and I worried that my holidays would be spent picking stockings up off the floor for weeks on end, not to mention the danger of her pulling down our heavy stocking hooks. We have this odd cut out between our living room wall and the room next to it, and the ledge is about a foot higher than our entertainment center. The idea started out simple. We’d put our stockings on that ledge instead of the entertainment center until Mabel got a little older. Ideas in this house don’t generally stay simple though, and as I stared at the blank, eggshell colored half wall our stockings would be hanging on a Christmas bulb lit up over my head. 

Michael has been with me long enough that he didn’t even blink when I came to him, bubbling over with my own brilliance, and said “Let’s build a fireplace!” Of course we can’t have a real fireplace, and buying one of those faux fireplaces that actually put out heat wasn’t an option either, but I didn’t see any reason that we couldn’t build our own with some wood and a string of Christmas lights, and fortunately Michael agreed. 

Once we planned it out it took a surprisingly short amount of time to execute, and we had a cheery little “fireplace” well before Christmas. We still had to do away with our heavy stocking holders, since the stockings were still close enough to the floor to be easily pulled on, but Command Hooks work just as well, and I now have a cute little “mantle” space that can be decorated for all seasons. And it can travel with us next time we move, so it’s a perfect addition to our Traveling Traditions. 

One day I’ll have a real fireplace crackling cheerily as we deck the halls, but I think I’ll still always have to find a place for our first, home made hearth.