Throughout the decades, I’d cling to winter wonderlands I saw on television and the feeling of my first Christmas at my Catholic school. It had everything I associated with Christmas, this holiday I’d quickly fallen in love with: community, friendship, love, belonging and the best songs ever written. These qualities felt wrong in my house but right in my American life. We don’t need all this stuff.”I thought the better I made Christmas, the more American I would feel. The next day, I released my family from the pressure of having to make the right holiday memories.

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