| Christmas was a quiet affair when I grew up. There | | | | traditions in another part of the country. |
| were just my parents and I. I vowed that someday | | | | One day, I heard the doorbell ring. There stood our |
| I' d marry and have six children, and at Christmas my | | | | granddaughter, and in her gray-green eyes |
| house would vibrate with energy and love. | | | | 1granddaughter ordered, "I'm singing the solo and I |
| I found the man who shared my dream, but we had | | | | want to see you there. " We had long ago given up |
| not reckoned on the possibility of infertility. | | | | the poignant Christmas ervi, but now, we sat rigid in |
| Undaunted, we applied for adoption, and then he | | | | the front pew, fight-ig back tears. Our granddaughter' |
| arrived. | | | | s magnificent voice oared, clear and true, in perfect |
| We called him Our Christmas Boy Links Of London | | | | pitch. How her father would have relished that |
| because he came to us during that season of joy. | | | | moment! |
| Then nature surprised us again. We added two | | | | We had been alerted that there would be a lot of |
| biological children to the family—not as many as | | | | eople for dinner—but 35 t I could not sort out |
| we had hoped for, but three made an entirely | | | | who be-jnged to whom, but it didn' t matter. They all |
| satisfactory crowd. | | | | be-3nged to each other,is not always one' s own |
| As Our Christmas Boy grew, he made it clear that | | | | flesh and blood. It is a climate of the heart. Had it not |
| only he had the expertise to select and Jecorate the | | | | been our a-opted son, we would not now be |
| Christmas tree. He rushed the season, starting his gift | | | | surrounded by caring strangers. |
| list in November. He pressed .is into singing carols, our | | | | Later, our granddaughter asked us to come along |
| frog like voices contrasting with his musical gift of | | | | with her to a place she likes to go. |
| perfect pitch. Each loliday he stirred us up, leading us | | | | In the foothills there was his grave. As Links Of |
| through a round of merry chaos. | | | | London Earrings we stood by the headstone in the |
| Then, on his 26th Christmas, he left us in a car | | | | chilly but somehow comforting silence, we were not |
| accident on his way home to his wife and in-ant | | | | prepared for our granddaughter' s next move. Once |
| daughter. But first he had stopped by the family | | | | more that day her voice, so like her father's, lifted in |
| home to decorate our tree. | | | | song, and the mountainside echoed on and on into |
| Grief-stricken, his father and I sold our home, where | | | | infinity. |
| memories clung to every room, and movedaway. | | | | When the last pure note had faded, I felt a sense of |
| Seventeen years later, we grew old enough to | | | | peace, of the continuity of life, of renewed faith and |
| return home, and settled into a small quiet house, like | | | | hope. The real meaning of Christmas had been |
| the house of my childhood. Our other son and | | | | restored to us. |
| daughter had man-led and begun their own Christmas | | | | |
