Oh, just having myself a merry little Christmas

It's here: the best time of the year. Tiny Tim and I think alike, but I won't settle for a mere day. I'll take all of December, please.

Christmas is supposed to fade a little as you grow up, to stale with the responsibilities and expenses that pile up as you move through life, until all the childhood holiday glee is gone, lost behind a stack of dishes or under a pile of wrapping paper.


But I don't always follow instructions. One year, when we were in our twenties, Lin and I discovered that we could make advent our own. We bought a cd with Christmas music, and that was it, I think. It evolved from there. Now, December is packed with newfound traditions, and I tell you, there is no shortage of glee:

We play lots of Christmas music, decorate the house with special advent stuff, watch Christmas movies, bake gingerbread houses and make candy, and have the best time in the world in the glow of candles and twinkly lights.


And we always make each other an advent calendar, with one little piece of candy or pretty thing for each of the 24 days till Christmas.

Five years ago, I decided to write Lin an advent story, just a brief chapter a day to be glued into a book with 24 pages. I filled it with pets and teddy bears and people we knew, and though I had no comprehensive plan when I started out, I somehow made the pieces come together in the end to make a real story.

It was called Line and the Snow Boy, and who knows where I would be today without it.