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The hardest part about getting married wasn’t learning to share a bathroom with a boy or adjusting to a TV that only gets sports stations. The hardest part of marriage is not going home for holidays. Six months after getting married, I woke up on Christmas morning in a small apartment to a 2 foot Christmas tree, no stockings, and no magical spread of presents that had mysteriously appeared under the tree overnight. While I was happy to share my first Christmas with my husband, it just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t quite get that it was actually Christmas and not just some imposter holiday.

When the next Christmas season rolled around, we had moved out of the tiny apartment and into our house. We still didn’t have many Christmas decorations, but we borrowed a full-sized tree from the husband’s office and set it up in the living room like it was the best and biggest tree in the world. We hit up Target for some stockings and hung them on the mantle. {We may have stuffed them with wrapping paper instead of presents, but that was besides the point.}

But it wasn’t the house or the tree or the stockings that made that Christmas just a little bit easier to handle. See, I’d forgotten one very important thing. It’s part of what makes the 25th Christmas, and not just another 25th day of the month. There was one thing missing that first year besides my family: the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting up the stairs on Christmas morning.

It was tradition growing up: stockings, cinnamon rolls, presents. As far back as I can remember, there have always been cinnamon rolls. Even when my mom got married and we combined holiday traditions for the first time, there were still cinnamon rolls served along side the breakfast croissants.

So now when I can’t be home for Christmas, there is one comforting thing I can do. On my list of holiday shopping duties is one extra task: stop at the grocery store for a roll of cinnamon rolls. This isn’t the time for homemade baking or healthy eating- it’s time for the blue can stuffed with ooey cinnamon bun dough, artificial cinnamon flakes,  and a cup of premade icing.

When I wake up in the morning, I crawl out of bed and quietly head downstairs. I slowly peel back the wrapping on the can and smack it against the counter, waiting for the familiar pop of the cardboard tube. I line the pan with cooking spray and stuff the rolls inside, making sure they’re all touching so there can be that extra gooey center roll. I put them in the oven, set the timer, and head back upstairs to drag the husband out of his Christmas slumber.

He moans and protests like he usually does, until he remembers it’s Christmas and he has a younger sister waiting for him to open presents at his parents’ house. But first, he has something else waiting for him. It takes him a minute to realize what it is that’s different about that morning’s air. Then he slowly figures it out- it’s the smell of baking cinnamon slowly starting to drift up the stairs. The timer beeps and he’s finally awake and starting to get out of bed. While he finishes coming to life, I head back downstairs to finish the job: I drizzle the icing over the hot cinnamon rolls, letting it melt and spread into all the crevices. By the time the husband has made it downstairs, there are two plates of cinnamon rolls sitting on the coffee table in front of the hand-me-down Christmas tree.

I’m not in the house I grew up in with my family nearby, but at least there’s one thing that reminds of home. It’s as simple as cinnamon rolls that get me through the next few days until we go home for Christmas with my family. It’s the comfort of tradition; something being the same when everything else is different. It’s the smell of cinnamon early in the morning, biting into the slightly undercooked center cinnamon roll, the distinct popping of the cardboard tube of dough, and the simple fact that the same brand of cinnamon rolls hasn’t changed in years.

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