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.