Snow crunching under your feet, lights dancing across the street, kids giggle and adults wiggle, as Christmas begins to touch the air.

The worst and best Christmas my family ever had was in the very same year. We were very poor that year, out of work, and out of luck it seemed. We got the Christmas tree for free from the Volunteers of America, it was small and broken, the boys named it Charlie Brown. I stood in line for two hours with hundreds to get a food basket which contained a loaf of bread, some can goods, half rotten potaoes and a 2 lb. Ham.

I was sitting in the chair in the living room when it happened. I was feeling so low, so without cheer. Then, a slight tickle began to creep up my arm and soon the other arm felt it too. At first I thought it was a bug, oh-no! Before I could even swat it, giggles began to fill the room my two sons were rolling on the floor so happy they had outsmarted Mom. All this joy amidst the gloom, could Chistmas still be saved?

I asked the boys what was their favorite thing to do at Christmas time. "See the lights, make Christmas Cookies," they said. And so we did. With the few ingredients we could find in the kitchen cupboards, we made sugar cookie snowmen and Christmas trees. That evening we walked around the neighborhood and looked at all the lights dancing in the street, on the houses and rooftops. So bright and beautiful, the way the world should be.

My sons, now grown, still talk about the year with the "free" small Charlie Brown Christmas tree, the snowmen cookies, and dancing lights. The year we learned what Christmas was all about---love and family.