My voice cracked on a lullaby as I stared across the dark nursery, my one-year-old crying in my arms. I was feeling somewhere between “blah” and Bah Humbug. Blah Humbug, if you will.

Earlier, I’d fought with my husband over which Christmas decorations to bring down from the attic. “Too girly,” he’d complained of the porcelain angels I'd recently inherited. “You live with four dudes!” Well, then. “Too gross,” I labeled his treasured childhood Nutcrackers, with their yellowing teeth and straggly beards.

I sighed and began humming Silent Night. Baby grew quiet and listened…a Christmas miracle! Was it possible he remembered the tune from last year, when I’d placed his infant-carrier beside the piano and played it?

As Baby drifted off, my spirits lifted. Maybe our fight didn’t symbolize what I feared – that we were failing to create happy Christmas memories for our family. Maybe I had simply forgotten to notice the intimate traditions we already knew.

Traditions like replacing bedtime lullabies with Christmas carols. Traditions like our tiny plastic Tea Lights...

They started when Biggest Boy was only two and collected left-behind lights after a holiday church service. Each December since, I’ve handed out drugstore Tea Lights to my little boys, watching them vanish into dimpled fists and denim pockets.

Later, I find the lights flickering at their chubby cheeks under their bed quilts or lined along the windowsills behind their curtains.

One night, during the first year of the Tea Lights, I did “shut down" duty downstairs and almost missed it - the dim flicker coming from our Little People nativity scene. Creeping closer in my slippers, I crouched down to find a Tea Light at the foot of Baby Jesus.

It is startling how something you nearly missed can awaken such joy in your heart.

This article was originally published in Tribe Magazine.

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