There are no strings of lights, no Christmas cards. There are no piles of presents, no long-distance phone calls from great-aunts and second cousins, no Christmas carols. There is no turkey, no plum pudding, no stroll to the bridge with our parents, no Messiah. This year Christmas is nothing but another white square on a calendar that is almost out of dates, an extra cup of tea, a few moments of candlelight, and, for each of us, a single gift.

Why do we bother?

Three years ago--when I was fourteen and Eva fifteen--I asked that same question one rainy night a week before Christmas. Father was grumbling over the number of cards he still had to write, and Mother was hidden in her workroom with her growling sewing machine, emerging periodically to take another batch of cookies from the oven and prod me into washing the mixing bowls.

"Nell, I need those dishes done so I can start the pudding before I go to bed," she said as she closed the oven door on the final sheet of cookies.

"Okay," I muttered, turning the next page of the book in which I was immersed.

"Tonight, Nell," she said.

"Why are we doing this?" I demanded, looking up from my book in irritation.

"Because they're dirty," she answered, pausing to hand me a warm gingersnap before she swept back to the mysteries of her sewing.

"Not the dishes," I grumbled.

"Then what, Pumpkin?" asked my father as he licked an envelope and emphatically crossed another name off his list.

"Christmas. All this mess and fuss and we aren't even really Christians."

:.PREVIOUS | NEXT.: