It’s still hard for me to fathom that this will be my last Christmas in the place I grew up, maybe ever. With my mom moving here next summer, our hometown holidays will be coming to an end.

Aside from a couple years spent down in Arizona with my grandma, I’ve experienced Christmas in Lewistown every year of my life. Sledding on the big hill by the high school, cutting down a tree on our ranch, sipping hot chocolate while roaming the Christmas Stroll with my friends. Driving out to my dad’s house on Christmas Eve and getting to open presents early. And always, always so much snow.

All Lewistown winter memories that I hold dear to my heart.

It has all the small town quirks I know and love. There’s one gas station in town that’s open on Christmas day, and nothing else. If you need something they don’t have, you’re out of luck. Yet even that place has special memories for me, it’s where I went to gamble for the first time on my eighteenth birthday. I got bored quickly, it was one of three times I’ve ever gambled, but I’ll never forget my older brother taking me to that gas station casino for the first time.

It’s where I’ve celebrated all my milestone birthdays, and my daughter’s first Christmas as well.

Skye has only had Christmas in Lewistown three times, and chances are slim that she’ll remember any of them. I think that’s the pat that makes me the saddest. She won’t remember the years her nana sat in her chair and watched her open her presents with pure joy shining in her eyes. She won’t remember the house we lived in, or making Christmas cookies with her grandma in that kitchen. The same kitchen my grandma cooked for us in.

She is too young to remember those things.

I know we will make new memories, in a new house but with the same amount of love and most of the same people. Missoula for Skye will likely be like Lewistown is for me, and there’s really nothing bad about that. It may even be the place she has the warmest hometown holiday memories of when she’s older.

For me though, Christmas will never be the same. I will have my mom in the same town, and our traditions won’t change just because the zip code does. But it will never again be a holiday in my hometown.

Because even though Missoula has become home to me, Lewistown will always be where I’m from.

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About the Author

Morgan Armstad

Morgan Armstad is a part-time writer and waitress, as well as a full-time mom to her incredible daughter Skye. She loves to read, dance and eat Milano cookies. She graduated spring 2016 from the University of Montana in Missoula with a degree in journalism with a history minor. Morgan is currently working and writing at Mamalode magazine in Missoula and has written for the website VProud.

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