The Christmas Eve Train

The 11:47 to Cedar Falls is never full on Christmas Eve. Just a handful of passengers scattered through the cars, each one carrying a bag and a story. I take the window seat, as always, and press my forehead to the cold glass. The world outside is a blur of dark fields and occasional farmhouses, their windows glowing like small promises.

There's a woman two rows up knitting something red. A man in a suit asleep with his mouth open. A teenager with headphones, watching the same movie I watched ten years ago on a train just like this one. We don't speak. We don't need to. We're all going the same direction.

What the Window Shows

The lights start small — a single porch light, then a cluster of streetlamps, then the slow bloom of a town coming into view. I've made this trip every year since I was eighteen, and the lights still get me. They're not grand. They're just houses. But from a train window at midnight, they look like everything worth coming home for.

My mother will be awake when I arrive. She always is. She'll have the porch light on and a pot of something warm on the stove, and she'll pretend she wasn't waiting up. My father will have fallen asleep in his chair with the TV on, and he'll wake up when the door opens and say my name like it's a question and an answer at the same time.

The train slows. The conductor's voice crackles over the speaker. I gather my bag and step into the aisle, and for a moment I'm just another passenger in a long line of passengers, all of us carrying the same quiet hope: that someone is waiting. That the light is on. That home is still home.

The doors open. The cold hits my face. And there, at the end of the platform, is my mother's red coat, her hands already waving.

I'm home. I'm home. I'm home.

The Ride Back

Every year, I think about not making the trip. The trains are crowded, the tickets are expensive, the weather is unpredictable. But every year, I buy the ticket anyway. Because the ride isn't the point. The arrival is. And the arrival is always worth it.

If you're on the fence about going home this year — or going anywhere that matters — let this be your sign. Buy the ticket. Take the train. Sit by the window. Watch the lights come into view. Someone is waiting. The porch light is on.