Holidays and Healing: The Quiet Miracle of New Belonging

For many of us who have lived through incarceration, the holidays carry their own kind of memory. They bring up the years when hope came in small, fragile pieces.

For me, Thanksgiving always brings me back to prison.

During my nine-year prison sentence, the smallest things were what kept me alive inside. Around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, you held on to anything that reminded you of home.

For months I looked forward to that tiny Thanksgiving meal that came on a plastic tray: a small slice of turkey, a hard roll, a couple spoonfuls of stuffing, a piece of pie. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to imagine being around a table again, being human again.

After months of imagining a Thanksgiving meal to feel alive again, I learned the prison had run out of Thanksgiving meals for the men in the hole. I opened my tray in solitary: instead of turkey, I got a soggy chicken patty, white sandwich bread, potato salad, carrots, and a plastic-wrapped cookie.

Me (Alex) in solitary confinement at Washington State Penitentiary in 2016.

I remember the feeling in my stomach. Hunger, yes, but also the feeling of not belonging anywhere. The ache of wondering when I would ever feel loved again. It was a reminder that even the smallest comforts could be taken away.

When I came home in 2019, I moved into my mom’s garage. I had a bed, a dresser, and a small TV, but I was whole again. That first Thanksgiving, I walked freely into my mom’s living room. I walked freely into my siblings’ homes and embraces. There was more food than I could eat.

And I realized it was never about the food, what I longed for.

It was about the memories being created.
It was the hospitality.
It was witnessing love in real time.
It was the resurrection of belonging.

Our Third Annual Tall Timber Retreat (2023)

A New Tradition: Thanksgiving in the Snow

Five years ago, Underground Ministries started taking men on what we now call our annual Men’s Retreat at Tall Timber Ranch Camps. A couple years in, we started bringing youth from our partner organization, O.U.R. Journey. Men home from prison, and gang-impacted youth surviving addiction and unstable homes. Together in a big cabin in the mountains for a weekend.

Up in the snowy mountains, my brother Genaro became the heart and chef behind our Thanksgiving meal, creating an atmosphere of hope and belonging through happy bellies.

Genaro Sanchez, Underground Healing Reentry Navigator and O.U.R. Journey Founder cooking a turkey at this year’s retreat.

Last year, a group of youth told us that this was their first Thanksgiving meal–ever. A room full of formerly incarcerated men, people who had spent much of their lives navigating pain and systems that tried to break them, created enough love to fill the room for these young people.

This year, as we all ate together in the cabin, one young man shared that he hadn’t had a Thanksgiving meal in years—not since his parents began fighting and holidays disappeared from his life. That moment hit all of us.

How easily joy can be taken away from a child.
How quietly traditions can die in homes filled with chaos.
And how powerful it is to resurrect them.

Some of the men in healing conversation during our morning groups by the fire.

What the Holidays Mean for Us Now

This season, I am grateful in a deep, quiet way. The kind of gratitude that comes from surviving, healing, and witnessing miracles in others.

I’m grateful for the chance to create new memories for the next generation, memories filled with warmth instead of survival.

I’m grateful for the resurrection work we do at Underground Ministries, where men and youth who were once isolated, abandoned, or locked away now sit at long tables together, passing plates, sharing stories, and discovering belonging again.

I’m grateful for a community of donors and supporters who make moments like these possible, moments where love, not punishment, becomes the force that shapes someone’s life.

And most of all, I am grateful that today, I can love myself enough to love others.
Because as my brother Genaro always says: Love always wins.

May that be part of your holiday traditions, as well.

Alex Sanchez

Lead Reentry Navigator, Underground Healing