Free Christmas Through a Child's Eyes by Helen Szymanski

yellow pencil and Gary won a jigsaw puzzle.
    At dusk, Florence took the glass chimney off the kerosene lamp, lit the wick, and set it back down on the table. A soft yellow glow filled the kitchen as we snacked on apple salad, cold turkey, and rolls, before it was time to go.
    Reluctantly, we bundled up into coats and boots, and headed back outside. I loved coming to visit Uncle Oscar and his family as much as I hated leaving. But I knew one more secret bit of magic awaited me outside in the dark. Because the wind had died down, we no longer needed the buffalo robe, and this time I could see the stars.
    The sleigh runners squeaked on the hard snow, the horses' harnesses jingled, and I gazed into the sky. There were stars so near it seemed I could touch them, and stars so far away they were only dots in the sky.
    â€œOne, two, three, four,” I counted.
    â€œYou can't count them all,” my older and wiser brother said.
    â€œI can too,” I replied. “Five, six, seven …” When I got to fifty, I stopped. Deisel was right — there were too many stars to count. And every one of them was beautiful.
    At the main road, the horses stopped and we quietly jumped off the sleigh.
    â€œThank you for the ride, Uncle,” I said, and reached out to shake his hand. He smiled as he grasped my hand, then he looked at Dad.
    â€œThanks a million,” Dad said in Swedish. Uncle Oscar nodded.
    My brothers and I snuggled together in the backseat of the car as Dad roared the motor to life. When the car jerked forward, I peered up at the stars one more time and thought about Dad's parting words to his brother.
    Snuggling closer to Deisel and Gary, I whispered, “I like everything about Christmas Day at Uncle Oscar's. Best of all, I like the sleigh ride in the night when a million stars look down on me.”

Boy to the World!
    BY CAROLINE B. POSER

    â€œH ow was your weekend?” Kathy, my son Griffin's daycare office manager, asked.
    â€œOh,” I sighed. “Not that great.” It was first thing Monday morning and I was dropping off my youngest. I had just left my older two boys, Mark and Daniel, at school.
    Kathy raised her eyebrows.
    I offered her a lopsided grin. “My children are like a small band of monkeys,” I said, picturing my three sons, all under the age of six.
    â€œOh, well … it's that time of year,” she added.
    â€œI suppose …” I said, not quite believing my words.
    I was still recovering from the second weekend in Advent and prayed things would get better, not worse, as the holiday season approached. I had already arranged my work schedule and decreased my commitments in an effort to implement all the traditions I remembered from my own childhood, and I planned to enjoy the holiday season. But, so far, that wasn't happening.
    I had envisioned the kids and I putting up the tree and decorating it during Thanksgiving weekend while listening to Christmas music. Then, over the course of the next several weeks, we'd bake cookies, make peppermint bark, and bake other goodies together, including the customary gingerbread houses. We'd talk about the birth of Jesus while we set up our nativity scene under the tree. We'd watch Christmas movies, make wish lists for Santa, and observe Advent every Sunday. That meant I'd have to plan a lesson and an activity and a treat, but that would be okay. After all, I was only working four-day weeks in December. I figured we could count down the days with our Advent calendar. I thought it would be fun. Yeah, right.
    What it was really like in my house was far from the pleasant scene from a Norman Rockwell painting I had envisioned. Instead … I put up the tree. The boys lost interest in decorating it after hanging a few ornaments each, at which point they proceeded to use them as missiles and other weapons. A couple of weeks later, our tree's ornaments remained on the top half only — as does the tree of any family