A Christmas Memory That Still Warms My Heart

A Story by PA1

It was the year the tree tilted just a little too far to the left.

Not enough to fall over, but enough to make my older brother mutter, “We’re gonna die under that thing,” and for my mom to stick a rolled-up sock under the stand “just until tomorrow.” It leaned for the rest of December.

I must have been nine. Old enough to know Santa’s handwriting looked suspiciously like my dad’s, but young enough to keep pretending�"for my little cousin’s sake, I told myself. But really, it was for mine.

The whole house smelled like cinnamon, pine, and whatever cookies my grandmother had decided were ‘this year’s’. She rotated her favorites�"Russian tea cakes, linzer stars, molasses crinkles�"but that year it was the lemon shortbread. Still warm on the cooling rack when we arrived, dusted with powdered sugar like the first morning snow.

We packed into the house like we always did�"coats on every banister, cousins on every step, and voices rising like steam from a dozen conversations.

The grownups drank spiced wine and talked over each other in the kitchen. The kids ran through rooms like joyful little tornadoes. I remember watching my grandfather�"quiet and tall, always the observer�"wrap my cousin in a plaid blanket after she fell asleep beneath the coffee table.

He smiled at me like it was a secret we were keeping together.

At some point, late in the evening, the power went out.

Not for long�"just a flicker, just a moment�"but it was enough to hush the room.

Candles were found. Flashlights switched on. And in that warm, flickering pause, my dad pulled out his guitar. He only played it once a year, on that night, and only ever the same three songs.

We gathered around without being asked. Not because we loved his singing voice (we didn’t) or the accuracy of the lyrics (decidedly suspect), but because it was tradition. Because it felt like Christmas only started once he strummed those first off-key notes.

“Silent Night”
“Little Drummer Boy”
“And that one with the donkey�"what’s it called again?”

Later, when the lights returned and the heater hummed back to life, no one moved.

We stayed in that hush just a little longer. Listening to the sound of snow beginning to fall again outside. Listening to my grandmother’s voice from the kitchen:

“The shortbread’s still warm.”

I don’t remember the presents that year. Not one.

But I remember the sound of my dad’s voice, cracking a little on the high notes. I remember the soft weight of a cousin asleep on my shoulder. I remember the tilted tree and the lemon cookies and my grandfather’s smile in the dark.

And I remember thinking, with that quiet certainty only children have: