Memories And Meaning Amid the Tinsel

The holiday season is in the air everywhere -- on city streets, in mobbed malls, in the Christmas lights that sparkle in the silence of tranquil neighborhoods. In a season rich with memories and full of hope, we invited our readers to share their stories and thoughts on the holiday season. Today, Haidee Allerton gives you an aluminum Christmas tree, Linda Adams remembers a special holiday on the brink of battle, Paula Matuskey reflects on living for today, and Jana Lee Frazier shares the powerful Christmas spirit.

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This year, Christmas is different from any other I've ever known. So much that once was is gone. Almost nothing is the same as it used to be, as it was for so many years.

My little girl is grown and living across the sea. My dog has died, and my body is ill and aching. I can no longer work and have lost my house to the bank. I don't live in the world anymore. I have no money, and debt piles up like the snow where I sometimes stand in a yard that is not my own, watching someone else's sheep and picking for decoration wildflowers flash-frozen in a storm.

It is actually hard to see sometimes; my vision has changed. And even harder to sink into sleep and often impossible to read because depression can strike one almost dyslexic.

But, half-blind, terrified, my ears ringing, sometimes rendered mute, sometimes the words stumbling off my twisted tongue, I still know Christmas.

I realize I can still recognize its gladness if at first it was only noted in the eloquence of opposites -- the relief of the fire after coming in from the cold, the sudden songs of the migrating swans, a kind of carol infusing the air with music after a spate of lonely silence. I have learned that if I close my eyes, the notes are sharper. I feel them vibrating against my breastbone along with the beat of wings. And if I cover my ears, the progress of the birds becomes a glorious study in sweet slow motion.

I look for Christmas in the welcome work for my idle hands in clearing the drifts from the concrete walk, imagining that I am cleaning my mother's grave, her grave at home from where I have been exiled by my illness. In this elemental gesture, for just a moment, I am with her again, 8 years old, snuggling with her under the covers in my bedroom, listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. Her hands that comb through my hair smell of the crush of pine cones from a wreath she is making.

In the mornings, the Yuletide wakes me -- a candy cane in my coffee can still make me smile as I head out with my steaming cup to feed the pigeons in the squall. They greet me meekly, huddling in their coop, quiet as the Christmas doves of peace. The fragrant wood that shelters them makes me think of the barn where I once worked as a zookeeper, feeding deer and bison on long winter days of wonder. And of the stable in Bethlehem.

I won't buy a tree, but not far away there is a high meadow where I walk among a forest of wild junipers, their emerald-green upturned branches clotted in blue berries as bright as sapphires. And I am not alone. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her, my daughter as a little girl. She shadows me here, a beautiful ghost of Christmas past. She sings, she dances, Mandy does, squealing as some ice falls down her collar and then blowing kisses to a squirrel, slipping her hand in mine. The scent of the sun on the boughs, the sequins of light on the snow, the electric charge of her silly grin make my eyes water and my heart squeeze like an accordion.

And just today, after days of wandering, searching for signs, I go out into the gloaming and I rush to the back field with the sky darkening to indigo, knee-deep in snow and stardust, just to stand with the horses there. Now I feel the courage to approach them. And I meet Christmas here in the midst of these beasts, their manes crusted in icy diamonds, their collective breath hot on my hands, soothing the bruise of my soul. Somewhere the farmer's dog howls like a wolf. I am grateful just to hear a canine voice.

And suddenly I see that while I was out looking for Christmas, Christmas found me, has come to me across countless miles and many years, crossing with blessings the barrier of my losses and my illness to wrap me in joy. This season in my life is like this winter solstice, bracingly painful, my world tilting only temporarily away from the sun. But with the spring surely to return. And suddenly I know how the shepherds felt on that night.

And in the wind, I hear angels' wings.

-- Jana Lee Frazier

(Jana Lee Frazier, 55, will spend Christmas with family in Utah, where she has been since moving from her sister's house in Silver Spring.)

I have it on very good authority: Santa Claus will bring Lauren a guinea pig. Lauren is as confident and as excited as only a 4-year-old can be.

For Lauren, this animal will be not only a long-desired pet, but a small triumph over Mommy. Months ago, Lauren asked for a pet, preferably a dog. Mommy vetoed the dog and countered by offering a goldfish. "Can I take it out of the bowl and pet it?" Lauren asked. Told that wouldn't be a good idea, Lauren vetoed the goldfish.

Eventually they compromised on a guinea pig, but Mommy added a condition: Lauren would first have to stop sucking her thumb. Highly motivated, Lauren did try. She wore mittens to bed and while watching television. But such habits die hard; surely there must be an easier way. And with the approach of Christmas, Lauren found one.

"I'll ask Santa Claus to bring me a guinea pig. He doesn't care if I suck my thumb!"

Now sure of her pet's arrival, Lauren has chosen his name (Fuzzy) and the place for his cage (at the foot of her bed). And she continues to suck her thumb.

Mommy knows when she's beaten. Santa Claus will bring Lauren a guinea pig.

-- Susan Reynolds Baime, Williamsburg

(Susan Reynolds Baime is also known as Grandmom, and possibly as Santa.)

I spied it in the window of a little shop in Old Town Alexandria: a silver aluminum Christmas tree, very 1970s. It reminded me of the aluminum tree -- complete with tacky color wheel that turned the tree blue, red, orange and purple as it rotated -- that my dad brought home from Sears one Christmas when we lived in New Orleans, where the trees for sale turned brown in the heat before they left the lot. I hated that metal tree so much that I went out and bought a real Christmas tree with my babysitting money and defiantly put it up in my bedroom and decorated it.

Now I went into the shop and asked the owner the price of the aluminum tree. "It's not for sale. My wife puts it in the window every year, and then we take it home on Christmas Eve to be our tree."

I offer $100. He thought for a moment.

"Well, she's at lunch. Okay. It comes with a color wheel. Do you want that, too?"

I thought for a moment.

"Nah," I said.

-- Haidee Allerton, Washington

In 1979, my oldest daughter, Andree, only wanted a pink bike from Santa. Even though I started looking early, there was not a pink bike to be had. As it got closer to Christmas, panic began to set in. I searched in vain at every bicycle shop, Kmart and Wal-Mart. Finally, on Christmas Eve, as I was passing on St. Bernard Avenue (in New Orleans), I saw an "old-time" bicycle shop. Something just told me to go in -- and there it was, the pink bicycle. I'll never forget the beautiful smile on my daughter's face when she saw her bike!

-- Michele M. Louapre, Washington

What if this turned out to be your last Christmas on Earth? How would you do things differently? Would you buy fewer presents and focus more on the people in your lives? Or would you buy more presents because you wanted, in every way possible, to show your family and friends how much you cared for them?

Paula D. Matuskey says loss has taught her to appreciate Christmas present.

Some years ago, my husband and I lost several family members and friends around Christmas. I came to realize that some of them really knew it was their last Christmas holiday season, while others had no clue. So is it better to know, I wonder, or not?

This season, I've been listening to holiday music all month. When I heard "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for perhaps the 15th time, I realized that the introductory phrases of that song speak to the realization that the present is all we have. "Christmas future is far away, Christmas past is past. Christmas present is here today, bringing joy that will last."

So how do we celebrate the Christmas present without feeling the sadness of Christmas past? Aren't we missing something when we forget the joys of Christmas past?

It's been several years now since we faced these losses at Christmas. I'm trying really hard to not let the melancholy of the season wipe away the joy of new birth. Maybe, I wonder, is that why people work so hard at being festive during the season?

And this year, I think especially of all those who have lost loved ones in Iraq. Families rent asunder through acts of terror and war. I wonder: Was last year's Christmas or Hanukkah or other holiday joyous for them? They didn't know it would be their last, did they?

So now I pray that each and every one of us makes it through this holiday season a little more conscious of how precious, and how fleeting, life on Earth can really be. There is joy for us, for the taking. Grab it. I'll try.

After all, it could be my last Christmas.

-- Paula D. Matuskey, Ellicott City