Christmas Pajamas When my children were small we fell into rather than decided on certain traditions. On Christmas Eve the children were each allowed to open one gift when we got home from Christmas Eve church services. I pretended to make a difficult choice, then handed each of them the one package they were allowed to open. Somehow they never caught on that it was always the one from their Granny and it always contained some really cool pajamas or a princess-worthy nightgown, which they were allowed to put on right away. My thirty-something daughters still talk about the year they received harem-style pajamas. Bicycles and dolls have been forgotten over the years but those pajamas linger as one of …

One of My Favorite Christmas Memories One of the greatest joys of my life is my son, Nicholas. He’s far away now, living with his husband, Tarik, in Montreal, but I miss him every day. Around the holidays, I think a little more about Nick and the many happy Christmases we shared when we were all living much, much closer together in Chicago. One Christmas, though, stands out. Because Nick’s mother and I divorced when he was six years old, we had to share him on the holidays. Usually, I got Nick on Christmas Eve and his mom would take him Christmas Day. One year when Nick was in high school, all the forces aligned to make it a very …

A Sense of Family When I think of Christmas, I think of family. Christmas meant going to my grandparents’ home on Christmas Eve with my aunts, uncles, and cousins to feast on an abundance of food (always several different types of fish), play games, and laugh. We’d sing Christmas songs led by my uncle, who sang totally off-key. We made memories.