A Christmas Miracle
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.
Love made me do it.
The joyous Holiday Season is upon us, yet the Spirit of Christmas eludes many. It’s a time of the year during which the festive atmosphere, the colors, the music, the gathering with friends and relatives accentuate the despair many are experiencing. It aggravates the sense of loneliness, the lack of love, the lack of resources, and sometimes reopens wounds from the past. I know that too well because until I became a mother, it’s precisely what I was going through every year.
Until I was nine years old, Christmas did not hold any magic or even beauty for me, at least not in my home. To the exception of a few Nativity characters, the house was never decorated. Christmas Eve was nothing special. We did not go to midnight mass, have a special meal, or gather with family members or friends, and Christmas day held very little excitement. I remember at least one instance when I didn’t get any present.
The highlight of the period leading up to Christmas was when we went to the nearby city of Nantes in Brittany, France. Each year, a large department store created a Christmas Wonderland. The music, the colors, the excitement of the people brought me so much joy. And the toys there were very beautiful.
Each year for Christmas, my father mailed us a package from Vietnam where he lived with my mother. Vietnam was then a French colony. My grandmother always opened it carefully so she could save the wrapping paper. The slow process added to the excitement of the soon-to-be discovered treasures from so far away. As the unwrapping slowly unfolded, scents from another world emanated from the box. They evoked a man, tall, handsome, strong, and courageous; a hero, as my grandmother described her son, the father I could not recall. It also brought images of palm trees, fragrant flowers, colorful markets, and beautiful women wearing pretty long dresses and large round hats. One of them was my mother.
I couldn’t understand why I had been separated from my parents, but I always dreamed of seeing them someday. The adult world was too complicated for me to understand.
It was so exciting to see the presents come out of the box. I remember candies made with lotus seeds, fabrics embroidered with flowers, dragons or birds, clothes, and toys. The toys were, of course, my favorite. As I was marveling about the dolls and other playthings, I thought my father must have been very rich. These were like the expensive toys I had seen in the department store before Christmas. I was allowed to play with them on the day we opened the package. The next day, however, they were always gone. Each time, I was told someone had stolen them during the night. I was heartbroken.
When I was nine years old, my father returned to France from Vietnam —alone. However, I rarely saw him. He immediately enrolled me in a boarding school, where I stayed through my late teens. It wasn’t unusual for me to stay at the school during the Christmas break, while all the other girls left to spend Christmas with their families. One year, when I was fifteen or sixteen, my father forgot me entirely. It was only in mid-January that he came to visit me at the boarding school. A friend came with him and asked me what I received for Christmas. My “nothing” prompted him to have a few words with my father, and today, I still have the Thesaurus dictionary I asked for as a late Christmas present.
As an adult, the Christmas season continued to be unbearable. I felt so lonely and unloved. I hated that time of the year and hid, only to resurface on New Year’s Eve to attend friends’ parties.
This all changed when our son, Kyle, was born. I knew I had to break the cycle of depression I fell into each year throughout most of December. I didn’t want him to suffer like I had. Rather, I wanted him to grow up with beautiful and magical memories of Christmas. I realized this was my opportunity to get out of my self-pity mode.
I needed to create something very special.
In the fall preceding our son’s first Christmas, in 1986, the three of us went to Florida to visit my husband’s parents. As we were going through a store called “Christmas Wonderland,” I came across the cutest miniature forest animals I had ever seen. I bought a few of them and created a festive display for our little boy to enjoy. A tray with foliage and the animals was the start of what has today become an L-shaped 14 foot long, 3-foot-wide Winter Wonderland. In 1987, while again in Florida, we purchased a few more of the lovely animals, and they all subsequently migrated from the tray to congregate around the tree.
It was during our two years in Korea that the collection grew dramatically. Back then, many adorable Christmas ornaments and characters from various American collections such as the Lucy Riggs bears and Enesco were made in Korea, and their cost was a fraction of what we would have paid in the States. During our stay in that part of the world, I purchased several dozen of the Lucy Riggs’s bears, the Enesco nativity, many beautiful artifacts, and a lot of foliage and mini trees.
Throughout the years, this collection grew to fill forty-five large clear plastic boxes. The display became larger and more sophisticated, and I created dozens of animations to make the scenes come alive. As we moved every two years to a different location around the world, new stories were added to accommodate the audiences of the countries we lived in. Each story is about one or several of the characters found on the display.
The annual Winter Wonderland display became a big event in our son’s life. So much so that before each Halloween, he would ask me when I was going to start building it. In the morning, he always insisted on having breakfast in front of the “work in progress” and would make comments on the changes he noticed. After school, he dashed home to check how far along I had gotten.
It was so heartwarming to see how much our son loved Christmas. He was so proud of his Christmas display that each year he invited every one of his classes, teachers included, to take a field trip to our house during the school day. Other neighborhood or local groups would also come, and he was always so proud to welcome the visitors. When he left for the university, he was worried I would sell all the collectibles and other decorative elements of the display. I had to reassure him it wasn’t my intention.
Now that he has two adorable daughters, it’s so much fun for me to tell them the stories I created for their dad. I always love it when little kids ask me questions. They sometimes give me ideas for new stories. One of these originated when our son was still young. After all these years, I’m finally developing this tale into a children’s book I intend to finish writing and illustrating during the coming year.
When we lived in Belgium, one of the major TV stations came to interview me and film the Christmas Wonderland. After we moved to Virginia, a local TV station did the same and broadcast the interview several times before Christmas Eve.
My great joy is to invite people to visit this special Christmas panorama. Amazing transformation can sometimes occur. For example, while living in Japan, I remember two visiting men in their fifties standing in front of the display, behaving like middle-aged men would – until they discovered a tiny, animated train running around a miniature mountain. They suddenly turned into two 10 years old boys, squealing with joy.
Here in Virginia, I also fondly remember the visit of elderly people from a local retirement home. After I told them the stories of what they were seeing on the display, we all sat down for cake and drinks. I then asked them what their Christmas was like when they were little. Many of them became emotional as they described a time when money was scarce, and their presents were just an orange or a handful of nuts, but love was plentiful. As their van was leaving, they waved at me while singing Christmas songs. It filled my heart with joy to have brightened their Holiday season.
Had I continued to hate Christmas and resent the Holiday Season, I would never have created the Winter Wonderland display. Our son’s birth was the catalyst to my transformation. Over the years, it became a true labor of love that brought me so much in return. To see the joy it generates in others fills my heart with so much happiness. It’s cathartic.
Let’s remember that in life, we always have a choice. A traumatic event can either destroy us or cause us to rise and create beauty, happiness, and love.
This Season, LOVE is the True Gift
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
During an interview in front of the Winter Wonderland.
I’ll very soon post a few pictures and videos of the Winter Wonderland on: