“Mommy, when I was living with the babies in New York, we got lots and lots of trees – 24 trees – and put them all over our house. And they twinkled up our whole house! And we put gingerbread men and candy canes all over them. And we put them all around our whole house and they TWINKLED OUR WHOLE HOUSE! We hanged our stockings up and our candy canes dangled.

And one time a man came and hung his stocking up in our house and it twinkled. He was our friend’s husband. He was pretty old. He said he was getting ready to die. I never got there when He finally died. Someday he’ll come back and we will get a Christmas tree.

When we got our tree, it was so sparkly, we had to wrap our finger up in a ribbon to pull it inside. And we put a big skirt on it.

(Mommy, this is just a make-believe story, you know.)”