It was an East Coast Christmas day, but the weather was mild–too mild. The sun was shining, the air smelled like spring, and my sister Marlene and I ventured outdoors wearing only sweaters for warmth. It didn’t seem at all like Christmas. We yearned for the snap of snow under foot and tiny puffs of frosty air meeting our breath. I suppose we’d have liked sleigh bells, too, and a pond for skating, and coming back flushed and happy to a mother who served hot chocolate.
What we wanted, truth be told, was joy within our troubled house, and a sense of celebration. But holidays in our family never went well. There would usually be a fight or tears or some mighty attempt at festivity that would inevitably go awry and leave us bewildered in its wake. Marlene used to say we lived in the chalk garden, where nothing could grow.
On this balmy Christmas afternoon, we went into the backyard together and sat behind the garage. We brought along a treasured transistor radio and tried hard to feel the spirit of the season. With such sunny, spring-like weather and not a decoration in sight, the only evidence of the holiday was the music that our little radio offered, but every station we tuned into was playing some version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which struck us as utterly hilarious. We giggled, turned the dial, and giggled some more.