This holiday season could possibly be the hardest Christmas my family has ever had to go through. As my home is currently under (slow) reconstruction, we are still living in a rental house outside the skirts of Falls Church right off of Route 50. Not only will we not be spending Christmas in our own home, but there are so many other things which we usually enjoy during the holiday season that will be severely lacking.  Being the pessimistic person I am, the Scrooge part of me looks at all the bad things about this Christmas. Then, one day last week, something happened which really made me think, and I’ve begun to realize what Christmas really does mean to me.

When the 9-ton tree crashed onto our house months ago during a freak storm, it completely busted our attic. Among the ruined treasures of handmade baby clothes, kindergarten projects, hand-woven garments from my parent’s trip to Africa in their early marriage, and other precious items was our entire Christmas decoration collection. This included things like family Santa hats, a wide array of character Nutcrackers, Christmas lights for decorating the house and the trees (ironic, much?), and an enormous collection of tree ornaments. Thinking about them now, I remember candy canes handmade from beads, a collection of wooden men, pictures of “Baby’s First Christmas,” random construction paper with pasted-on noodles, beautiful golden snowflakes, fragile glass balls, hand-painted ornaments from Russia, different musical instruments, not to mention the star that topped our tree. This last is a construction paper masterpiece with red glitter pasted in splotches made by my oh-so-artistic sister Kathryn when she was only four years old. Sadly, in recent years we had to resort to owning a fake Christmas tree because it was too much of a hassle to get one of our own. I was upset when we resorted to this; going out and cutting our own tree had always been a special moment for us. But now that all of these things are gone, I’ll admit I would give anything to have that stupid, fake tree in our rental house now.

Instead, our tree this year is a 2-foot tall also fake tree that my sister took from her dorm at college. Her suite mates were sympathetic enough to let her bring it home; luckily, it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without a tree. We do have some small, white lights however, bought most likely from the dollar store, or another tacky place such as this. This small tree is appropriate, and will accurately reflect the amount of presents that will “fit” beneath it. As of now, we are collecting all the family and friends’ cards that we receive and we place them around the tree so there can be a little bit of joy. This shrunken tree and amount of presents makes me feel like I’m looking at Christmas through the wrong end of a telescope – a smaller-scaled Christmas. Our tree does have one ornament, however; my dance studio was handing out tree ornaments in ballet and I picked a special one that made me feel bittersweet – a ceramic blonde ballerina in a pink tutu. I hung this ornament in the middle of our midget tree. It hangs alone.

As you can plainly see, I was taking this holiday – or lack thereof – a little harshly. But something quite pivotal happened to me that made me rethink my priorities and the meaning of Christmas. I was in CVS last Tuesday buying candy canes and Christmas stickers for my little girls in the dance classes that I teach because last week was the final class of the session. I had promised my young dancers special treats and we were going to perform some choreography for the parents and enjoy a little party afterwards. As I was patrolling the store looking for the cheapest treats I could find, a  woman in a sari came up to me and asked for help in selecting a shampoo and conditioner. I spent about five minutes trying to explain to her the difference and helped her find a good one for her hair type, which she was really concerned about. At the end when she finally understood, she thanked me heartily and went to the cashier to pay. I found some cheap stickers (three sheets for only 99¢!!) and got in line to pay as well.

This same woman was having problems paying – her total I believe was $56.05 and she had only managed to produce $52.00 from her grungy-looking pack, those last two dollars completely in change. She begged the cashier to let her run to her car to get more money and return to finish paying, but the cashier snapped back haughtily that he would have to cancel her whole order and take the next customer, another woman in front of me. My heart went out to this woman trying to pay, and I pulled out the only $5 bill that I had in my wallet. “Here, ma’am,” I said, “use this.” She thanked me, took the money, and paid her purchase. She turned to me, gave me some $3 in change and offered to take me to her car to give me the rest of the money, but I instead shook my head and smiled. I responded with a “Don’t worry about it. Have a Merry Christmas.” She shook my hand, the kind of handshake that makes your heart melt: she took my hand in both of hers and said in her thick accent, “God bless you,” and left the store.

The woman in front of me looked mildly shocked that a teenager would do such a thing, and turned to me and said, “That was very kind of you.” I merely nodded my head, but was worried that I wouldn’t have enough money for my own purchase. As I was counting my dollar bills and how much everything in my basket added up to, the woman in front of me dropped a $5 bill in my basket after she had paid. “Merry Christmas,” she said warmly, and disappeared from the store. I now had enough to buy treats for my little girls. I paid, returned to my car, and cried on my steering wheel.

After this pivotal moment, the small and simple joys started revealing themselves to me. This being the first Christmas I have my license and my own car, I have been listening to the station 97.1 Wash-FM nonstop as I drive from  Falls Church to Vienna to Arlington to Annandale to McLean, from school to work to dance to home. The sweet, simple joy of hearing Christmas music singing from my radio warms me up as soon as I get in my car. Some of my little dancers bought me Christmas presents, such as chocolates or handmade cards or the very much appreciated $10 gift cards to Starbucks. I find myself spending more time in Starbucks appreciating the red cups and white, gold, and red decorations. In my dance studio, three different Christmas trees are illuminated, as well as the lights hanging on the windows outside. The other night I baked Christmas cookies with my best friend using one of their family’s oldest Christmas tradition cookie recipes. I recently received one of the best Christmas gifts I could ever get – a very dear friend bought tickets to see the Washington Ballet’s performance of “The Nutcracker” for the evening before Christmas Eve.

So maybe I won’t be spending Christmas at home. Maybe our house has no lights and maybe our living room doesn’t smell like fresh pine, and maybe tree lights won’t reflect onto mountains of shiny wrapping paper. Maybe reindeer won’t graze my roof and maybe we won’t eat a big turkey for dinner. Maybe we won’t spend two hours unwrapping presents on Christmas morning and maybe our stockings won’t be filled because, well, we don’t really have any stockings. Nevertheless, a small explosion of random human kindness that I didn’t know existed anymore has helped to remind me of the real meaning behind all these things. And the more I think about it, maybe this Christmas won’t be so tough after all.