San Antonio, the Medellins: (Finding Home, A Holiday and Advent Reflection)

Every December, we hear the familiar lines: “There’s no place like home for the holidays,” or “I’ll be home for Christmas… if only in my dreams.”

And somewhere inside, something stirs. Something deep. Because for some of us, the word home is complicated. I’ve asked myself for years: What is home, really?

Is it the house you grew up in? The city where you became who you are? The people you live with now. Or something else entirely?

Because my “home” was never a street address. It certainly wasn’t 506 West 86th Street—too many wounds lived there. And it wasn’t Lathrop, where my mother and stepfather #2 drifted between paychecks. Those weren’t homes. They were temporary shelters from storms I didn’t choose.

But my soul did know home. Home was Grandma and Grandpa Medellin’s house at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Where the warmth wasn’t just from the oven. Home was two beautiful, golden years in San Antonio, where friendships ran deep, and laughter came easy. Home was the innocent kiss of a young lady who made life feel gentle. Home was coming back north for Christmas break, reconnecting with friends, or sitting by a fireplace with someone whose embrace still lingers in memory.

Home wasn’t a place. Home was where I felt wanted, safe, and seen. So, when the holidays arrive, and people start singing about “going home,” I feel that familiar ache.

I want to go home too, but which one? The childhood haven at my grandparents? The streets of San Antonio? The winters when my heart was young and hopeful?

Maybe the home I’m longing for doesn’t exist on any map. Perhaps it lives in a memory, in a season of life, in a feeling that shaped me. Perhaps that’s why certain lyrics hit so hard, because the “home” we miss isn’t a place we can return to. It’s a moment in time when we felt like we belonged. And then Advent enters the scene. Advent begins in the dark, shorter days, longer nights, quiet aches. It starts with longing. A longing for peace. For belonging. For healing. For something steady. For a place or a person where the soul can rest.

And in its quiet wisdom, Advent asks us a question: What if the home we’re searching for is not behind us, but coming toward us? Because the first Christmas wasn’t picture-perfect. It wasn’t a glowing house on a snowy hill. It was a stable. Straw. A feeding trough. A young couple is doing their best. A savior born far from the comfort of home.

If God can show up there, then maybe Home isn’t where everything is easy. Home is where love shows up anyway.

Advent tells us: Home is where God meets you. Home is where hope flickers back to life.
Home is wherever you are when God steps into your story and whispers, “You are not alone.”

Maybe that’s why this season stirs our deepest memories. Maybe the longing for “home” is really a longing for connection, for tenderness, for the people who shaped us and the God who continues to shape us still.

Maybe home is the memory that made you, the people who held you, the chapters that healed you, and the life you’re living now, even the imperfect parts. Maybe home is a journey, not a destination. And maybe, the most profound truth of Advent is this: You’re not trying to get back home. You’re learning to recognize the home that’s already forming within you, the one God is building, one quiet moment at a time.

Every December, something in me whispers, “I want to go home.” The older I get, the more I realize: That whisper isn’t about geography. It’s about longing for the places where love lived.

But Advent tells me this: Home isn’t gone. Home isn’t lost. Home isn’t unreachable. Home is where God is. And God is always coming closer.