Here's our fifth annual series presenting holiday memories from some of your favorite children's books authors and illustrators. Share your holiday memories with SLJ on Twitter, using the hashtag #HolidayMemory.

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Pam Muñoz Ryan, Photo: Sean Masterson

Pam Muñoz Ryan's most recent book is The Dreamer (Scholastic, 2010), with illustrations by Peter Sís. Her forthcoming picture book Tony Baloney (Scholastic), illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham, will be out in January 2011.

The Mystery Tree

I was born on Christmas Day. As a child, all of my birthday cakes were thematic, often with plastic reindeer and a Santa, or a sheet cake with white frosting and red and green piping. All of my life people have asked me, "Do you really celebrate your birthday on Christmas Day? Or do you do that thing where you celebrate six months later?" Of course I celebrate on Christmas Day! It feels special to me. When I was a preschooler, my uncles told me that the reason people put up all the colored lights in December was for my birthday. And I believed them, until a mean-spirited first grader told me otherwise. My mother was one of seven children and many of her brothers and sisters lived in our town, Bakersfield, CA. During my growing-up years, every family made a favorite recipe to exchange. For instance, Aunt Rose made prune cakes, Aunt Socorro made her famous bleu cheese rolls, and my mom made fudge and Mexican wedding cakes. I can still see the tins lined up on the Formica countertop in Mom's kitchen, with rows of thick fudge and the round white powdery cakes arranged inside. A tradition that I started with my own children was to buy a mystery tree. But it began as an act of desperation. One year I took all four of my young children (two girls and twin boys) to a nursery to buy a Christmas tree. Each child had an opinion about the particular tree they wanted. We walked up and down the rows until everyone began to whine and beg. The excursion escalated into fighting and crying. I was exhausted and frustrated. In a fury, I piled them all back into the Suburban to take them home. I remember putting my head on the steering wheel, listening to their wailing and pleas for a tree and thinking, Is this what it's all about? I pulled the car over to the side of the lot, where a clerk stood next to a pile of trees still bound with string. I pointed to one on top and said, "That one, and don't undo it." He tossed the tree in the back and I pulled away. Despite all the complaining and tears that followed, I kept repeating that this was our tree, and that no matter what it looked like, we were keeping it. (I might have even fictionalized a bit, by insinuating that this particular tree had been waiting for us all along and we were meant to be together.) I took it home, put it in a bucket of water and left it to soak overnight. Something happened. There was a lot of peeking out the window at the tree. There was a lot of wondering if it was thin or bushy or had a bare spot. By the time we ceremoniously cut the string and shook it out, it wouldn't have mattered if all the needles fell off. We were invested. And I was right. It was our tree. I still buy a mystery tree every year. My husband and I host a Christmas Eve party. All of my children and their families come, as well as close friends and neighbors. We sing Christmas songs and Santa often makes a brief appearance. Not to deliver presents, but to ask directions to Escondido or Oceanside. He leaves candy canes for the children and promises to stop by their homes later. I send everyone home with fudge that I made from my mom's recipe. Then, I anticipate Christmas morning . . . and my birthday.

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Michael Buckley is the author of "The Sisters Grimm" (Abrams) and the "N.E.R.D.S." (Amulet) book series. A film version of "The Sisters Grimm," which combined the first three books in the series, is in the works.

A Long Time Ago by A Christmas Tree Far, Far Away...

Let's face it—the true meaning of Christmas isn't a celebration of the birth of Christ, or goodwill toward man, or even the spirit of giving. The true meaning of Christmas, atleast since 1977, has been to acquire more Star Wars stuff. When I was seven-years-old the sci-fi epic came to our local movie theater. It was like a spiritual awakening. I immediately converted from Protestant to Luke Skywalker-ism and worshipped at its altar. I collected the action figures, light sabers, and blasters and kept them all in meticulous condition like they were Holy relics. I had countless play sets, space ships, and even the vinyl LP of the soundtrack. I was fanatical in my praise and dedicated to spreading the sermon of George Lucas near and far. But there was one vital part of my vast shrine that was missing: the Millennium Falcon. The release of Han Solo's ship to stores was like that of prophesy. I had heard rumors of swiveling chairs, sound effects, and even a laser light but no one had seen one! For most kids my age it was the equivalent of the Holy Grail, no one was sure it existed but rumors said it was created by the divine hands at Hasbro and promising to bring eternal happiness. I had to have it. Naturally, I turned to the Sears catalog to find it. Back then, Sears was my family's go-to place for everything—tools, tires, sheets, clothes, penicillin, chemotherapy—whatever you wanted they had it. If they had sold groceries we might have just moved into one. So I knew if there was a store that had the mythical Falcon Sears would be the place. I flipped to the toy section, skipping past the Mos Eisely Cantina, the X-Wing fighters, and the 12-inch Boba Fett action figure until I found it. What a beauty! The Millennium Falcon had room for up to 16 action figures inside its secret smuggling compartments. It featured a pivoting gunner station, and it made all kinds of noises! It was the equivalent of coming across the Burning Bush. I scribbled its name onto my Christmas wish list, underlined it, highlighted it with yellow marker, and even drew bold, black arrows at it. I couldn't have been more obvious if I had just put up a neon sign. Christmas morning came and my brother, Eddie, and I stood over our bounty. Santa had done well. There was a sea of presents but I was looking for only one in particular—a box big enough for a scoundrel's space ship. I spotted it in the back and smiled knowingly, doing my best to not appear smug. Parents put a lot of effort into their surprises and I didn't want to steal the joy from them. So, in the spirit of the season I set aside my eagerness and opened everything else—grandma's lousy pajamas, a leather wallet making kit in case I was going to open a stand on the interstate, a book—sigh! All paled in comparison to my biggest wish, but I pressed onward. Finally, my brother and I were down to our last presents. Knowingly, my mother grinned and hefting the two big boxes she handed one to me and one to Eddie. I ripped open mine—really just going through the motions knowing full well what it was only to discover that it was not the Millennium Falcon. It was a huge box of Legos. Legos! I was nine-years-old! Why not some Pampers and a teething ring while you're at it? I turned to my brother and watched in horror as he ripped off his wrapping paper and hugged the Millennium Falcon—my Millennium Falcon—like it was puppy with a laser turret. "Wow!" he cried. I looked to my mother who smiled back at me—completely clueless. "There must be a mistake. That's for me." "No, it's for Eddie. It was on his list," she said. "It was on my list! Remember the highlighting!!??" "You both had it on your lists. I couldn't buy you two. I'm sure your brother will let you play with it." Play with it? You didn't play with the Millennium Falcon—you gazed upon it lovingly. Well, by the end of the day I had firmly cemented my place on Santa's naughty list. I concocted a series of swindles in order to cheat my brother out of that toy that would have made Lando Calrissian cringe. I told my parents that the Falcon was covered in lead paint. I warned that the size of the toy would cause massive injury to young Eddie's spinal column. I suggested that Han Solo was a poor role model for a seven-year-old boy. When that failed I played on my brother's naiveté by suggesting that Lego's were a much more fun, and versatile toy guaranteed to provide hours of entertainment. I even challenged him to an hour-long nail-biting game of rock, paper, scissors, but I was bested. Eventually, stewing in my room I learned a valuable lesson about Christmas. Always check your sibling's list and if there is a problem be prepared to destroy it.

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Judy Blundell is the 2008 National Book Award-winning author for What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic). Her new book Strings Attached (Scholastic) will be published in March.

The Year My Parents Gave Away the Dog

It was the year my parents gave away our dog. There had been talk of it for weeks, how Mike, our cheerfully disobedient collie, was just too much dog for our family. I told my best friend it wouldn't happen. "Because bad things happen to other people, not to us," I said, with the blithe certainty of seven. A few days later, Mike was gone. Christmas arrived. We pajama-slid down the stairs to find the usual jumble of presents under the tree. My brother and sister dived for the pile. I stood still. Parked by the tree was a gleaming purple bike, a grownup-kid bike with gears. I opened present after present, eyeing that bike. It could not possibly be mine. I had something serviceable—wheels, handlebars, seat, rust, inherited from my sister. I was always inheriting things from my sister. This bike was new. It was so beautifully, resplendently purple. My parents arrived, mugs of coffee in hand. My mother asked a bit worriedly if I liked my new bike, since I was pretending, with the utmost casualness, to be preoccupied—with what? I don't remember, a Barbie? A book? Afraid to even look too long at the Bike, afraid to want it too much. The rush of joy lifted me into the saddle. Oh happy day—yes, world, you get the Christ Child and salvation, but I get the bike! From the perspective of lo-too-many-years, now I think that in my seven-year-old brain, I learned something essential that Christmas. That life can easily gobsmack you with the awful (years later, reading Love That Dog with my daughter, I was the one who cried) but then, just as remarkably, just as unexpectedly, life can offer the sweet. That frigid Christmas morning I rode my purple bike around and around the dining room table, and nobody yelled, and the thick snow fell, and there was no dog, but there was this.

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Tony DiTerlizzi, author of the Spiderwick Chronicles, with Holly Black, received a Caldecott Honor for The Spider and the Fly (2002). His latest book, The Search for Wondla (2010, all S & S), is a modern classic that meshes a vision of the future with the traditions of our literary past.

THE TWELVE GOONEY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

(A MOSTLY TRUE STORY STEEPED FOR THIRTY YEARS WITH A DOLLOP OF NOSTALGIA) In 1979, on the last day of school before the holiday break, I received one of the best Christmas presents ever. It wasn't a cool toy. and it wasn't wrapped under my tinsel-bedraggled tree. The Hobe Sound Elementary Holiday Extravaganza (HSEHE) was scheduled that day. All grades (K-5th) participated in this joyful painful pageant featuring humiliating skits, an awkward gift-exchange, and warbling off-key carols. The day prior, in preparation for this event, each fifth grade student was allowed to choose a partner with whom he would perform and select the perfect song to mumble and murmur in front of the entire school. All of which, we were told, would bring in the holiday spirit. The logical partner for me? Greg Kotter. To say that Greg was a "Wild and Crazy Guy" would be an understatement. He was insane. Like, Mork from Ork insane. He could walk on his hands. He ate sand. He would shout out bizarre phrases in class like "Jiggy-jiggy, hee-hee!" and "Have a timidly day!" Sometimes he arrived at school in a character known only as "Pilma"—an old hermit who lived on a mountain. He was brilliant. He was weird. He was my best friend. Though Greg and I had been friends since second grade, we now had different teachers for fifth grade. So our meeting for the HSEHE was really just a chance for us to catch up on what loot we were hoping to score that year. Greg had asked for some Mad Libs and a Creepy Crawlies Thingmaker while I held out hope for a Revell model of a '78 Firebird Trans Am just like Smokey and The Bandit. We spent the entire time dreaming of our Christmas booty only to find that we had missed choosing our song selection for the HSEHE. "Kotter, DiTraleezzi, you boys get over here," Mrs. Tasker*, who was Greg's teacher, commanded. Mrs. Tasker was a saucy southern ferryboat with a dark puff of permed hair and a glass eye (true). Rumors abound that she was deaf in one ear, but nobody dared ask which ear it was. Her deafness was likely caused from her own yelling, which could be heard through the portable walls that contained her classroom. You did not cross Mrs. Tasker. Ever. Greg and I shuffled over to her. Her great girth, draped in an emerald kaftan, poured over a tiny stool as she dabbed sweat off of her cheeks with a hankie. I had never been this close to Mrs. Tasker before. Her skin looked like an orange rind and it seemed to be smudging off and onto her hankie from the make-up stains that covered the damp rag. "Y'all have been dilly-dallying all morning," she said pointing at us in an accusatory fashion with her hankie. "So here's your song." She handed the paper to Greg. I could still smell the ink from the ditto machine wafting up from the blue type as I peered down to read the title, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." "Aw, c'mon Mrs. Tasker, we..." Greg started. "Zip it," she said. "You two chattybugs should have been paying attention when we announced the song choices. This is the only song left." "But only sing-y people in chorus class can do this song, how are we gonna do it?" Greg asked. I saw worry on his face under his thick transitions lenses. "Too bad, so sad," Mrs. Tasker rotated on her perch and hacked something up into her hankie. Deflated, Greg and I flopped down in the corner of the classroom. "What are we going to do?" I lamented. "'The Twelve Days of Christmas' takes like an hour to sing, and that's with a full chorus." I knew this for fact, because my mom's beloved John Denver & the Muppets LP had been playing non-stop since we put up our tree. Greg stared down at the paper, saying nothing. Was he already trying to memorize all of those words? "I can't even sing," I whined. Across the room, two girls recited "Jingle Bells" while they performed an intricate hand-clapping game. It was impressive. "Everybody is totally going to laugh at us and not in the good way," I moaned. Greg looked up from the ditto, "I have a plan." I leaned in close. "Yes. Go on." "It involves breaking bending the rules a bit." "I'm with you." "We may get spoken to in trouble afterwards." I pondered this for a beat. "If it's worth the risk I'll take it." Greg replied, "Oh, it's worth the risk. They will applaud us. They will love us." "I'm in! Let's do this!" Greg leaned in close, cupped his hand next to his mouth and sang in a hushed tone to me. It was nothing more than a line, a phrase, but it set my brain off into hyperspace: "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, an eyeball in a pear tree." I grabbed a stack of construction paper and cracked my knuckles in preparation. I pulled out my lucky Star Wars pencil and began to draw. As I did so, I sang, "On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two flaming toads..." Greg finished, "...and an eyeball in a pear tree." We snickered and snorted like the masterminds we were as we laid out our plan for comedic domination of the HSEHE. "Hey, whatcha guys doing?" Rob asked. Rob was a six-foot tall fifth grader with a wad of curly black hair that would make a Harlem Globetrotter weep. He was holding a giant bell in one hand and "The Never-ending Night Before Christmas" in another. He scanned the twelve drawings scattered on the floor around us. "What is this?" he asked. His eyes then lit up like he'd just discovered a free stash of Marvel comics. "Ha ha! An eyeball! That's funny!" Greg shushed him. I began to collect the evidence drawings as fast as possible, "We know, idiot! But we are not going to reveal our 'improved' rendition until we have to sing it at the show." "Then no one can stop us!" Greg said with a maniacal giggle. "So keep your trap shut, Rob," I said, "because if Mrs. Tasker finds out, she'll..." "She'll what?" a ferryboat foghorn went off from above. Mrs. Tasker was standing right behind us. She looked up at Rob, "Run along Santy Clause. You've got a poem to learn." Greg and I tried to leave with him employing the "fleeing flock" method of retreat. As seen in many science educational films, this mass escape tactic attempts to confuse the predator from isolating one victim to attack. "Don't even try," she bellowed. "You two have been awfully quiet over here. Have you been memorizing your song? You know its one of my favorites." Fear had zapped my ability to speak, especially now that the entire class had stopped rehearsing and was watching. Greg, ever the quick one, responded, "Yup, we've been practicing and memorizing every line." Mrs. Tasker smiled then focused her gaze on me, "Tony, you are the little artist of our school, right? Are you doing drawings for each of the twelve days?" I nodded. Silent. "Oh, you're a shy one, eh?" Mrs. Tasker extended a swollen hand to me. It resembled a rubber glove filled with so much sweat water that it was about to burst. On the end of each finger a blood red Tyrannosaur claw beckoned for my artwork. "Come on, shy bug, lemme see. I am sure they are woonderfuuuul." Reluctantly, I handed over the drawings. The words of my mom echoed through my head, "You've got a real talent, Tony, I know you'll do great things with it." Mrs. Tasker seized the pictures and began to page through them. Her eyes narrowed as she studied my drawings and Greg's lyrics on every page. She said nothing. The entire fifth grade said nothing. Greg and I shifted uncomfortably waiting for the steamboat engine to explode. Would I be grounded for this? Could I be expelled? Can Christmas actually be taken away as a punishment? Farewell, '78 Firebird. I'll miss your T-top and snowflake rims. Mrs. Tasker tucked the drawings under one of her paddle arms. "You boys think you're pretty funny, huh? Well we are gonna see what kind of funny bunnies you really are." The entire class Oohed. One kid whispered loudly, "She's taking the drawings to the principal's office. They're gonna git it now." "Enough!" Tasker barked, then quickly composed herself. "Back to your rehearsals, students." She shuffled out of the room and Greg and I didn't see her for the rest of the day. I tried every which way to get out of going to school the next day but my mom wouldn't have it. Every excuse of mine was rebutted with the fact that I would miss the gift exchange and the HSEHE. Finally I relented. As I rode the bus to school, I quietly reflected on the pending holiday. To me, Christmas itself was, in a way, a birthday party for Jesus. I wondered if Jesus got a lot of cool gifts for his birthday. I'm guessing not. So I prayed. I asked Jesus that if I got into a whole lot of trouble at school, and my parents took away Christmas, then perhaps he could let Santa know that I bequeathed my '78 Firebird model to him. I assured Jesus it was an awesome car and that he would also enjoy Smokey & The Bandit if he hadn't yet seen it. Seriously, that film was much better than Hooper. Then I wished him Happy Birthday. Since it was only a half-day of school, the entire student body packed into the cafeteria that morning for HSEHE. Greg and I sat together like guilty convicts awaiting our grisly sentence. The skits and recitals went on and on and on forever. After awhile, I started to wonder if our punishment was put off until after the holiday break. I crossed my fingers. Then our principal, Dr. Bellhammer, took the stage. He called up Mrs. Tasker. Classmates sitting nearby starting to poke and jab Greg and me—taunting and teasing us before we were guillotined for their holiday pleasure. My body went numb. This was it. "Alright, zip it up," Mrs. Tasker growled into the microphone. "Yesterday, two boys—Tony DiTraleezzi and Greg Kotter—thought they were the stuff when they decided to poke fun of one of my beloved carols, 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'." I looked over at Greg with remorseful eyes. "It's been nice knowing you." He nodded solemnly. "Well, lessee what you all think about it," Mrs. Tasker nodded and the heavy tasseled stage curtains parted behind her. On stage stood the entire Hobe Sound Elementary Chorus with a huge projection screen hanging behind them. Whispers of confusion lit up in the crowd. My heart raced and my eyes were wide as the lights dimmed. The choral instructor began to play the piano while the choral group sang: "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me..." A slide made from my drawing was projected onto the screen. Mrs. Tasker croaked into her mic, "...an eyeball in a pear tree." The entire school exploded with raucous laughter. Teachers, in hysterics, spit into their coffee. The lunch ladies cackled and wiped away tears of laughter with their sanitary gloves. Even our school janitor, Mr. Jenkins, sang along as the chorus belted out our entire song: "The Twelve Gooney Days of Christmas" One the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Twelve bones a'crunching, From eleven dinos fighting, Ten hobos leaping Nine zombies dancing, Eight brains a'squishing, Seven snot's a'dripping, Six scabs a'picking, Five golden fleas, Four grungy black things, Three dead heads, Two flaming toads And an eyeball in a pear tree! That day, at the 1979 Hobe Sound Elementary Holiday Extravaganza my 10-year-old dreams were fulfilled. I couldn't imagine a gift bigger or better than the one Mrs. Tasker gave Greg and me—not even a Revell model Firebird with T-top and snowflake rims. May all of your holiday schemes wishes come true. * Mrs. Tasker was not a real teacher. She was more a combination of past ogre-like educators rolled into one megamonster (with a sweet heart) for dramatic purposes.

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Margaret Peterson Haddix is best known for writing the "Missing"series and the Shadow Children (both S & S) sequence. She also wrote the tenth and final volume of the 39 Clues (Scholastic) series.

The Wait

December always seemed to last forever when I was a kid. I had friends whose families put up their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving. By the first week of December they were reporting on the results of elaborate spy missions and their various techniques for covertly peeking into the presents already accumulating under those trees. So I knew what was possible. But my family didn't put up our tree until Christmas Eve. And the presents never appeared until Christmas morning. One of my grandmothers even waited until Christmas Day to put the baby Jesus in her nativity scene. It felt like all the grown-ups in my family were constantly hammering home the point that the weeks leading up to December 25 weren't actually Christmas, but Advent—all about the waiting. Sometimes late at night when I was lying in bed longing for Christmas, I'd hear rustling noises elsewhere in the house that I was sure meant my mother was wrapping presents. But I never actually caught her at it until I was a teenager. That in itself was amazing, because my mother spent hours wrapping Christmas presents, in as many individual packages as possible. The joke in later years was that if she gave you a pair of socks, they just might come in two separate boxes. And, Christmas morning, when my brothers and sister and I got that first glimpse of the piles of gifts under the tree, all that waiting and the secrecy and my mother's hours of wrapping seemed worthwhile. We were awestruck sorting through the perfectly wrapped presents: "Oh, this one's yours...Oh, look, the big one's mine." But, before we could tear into them, there was even more waiting. My dad's a farmer, so he had to go out and feed livestock before he could sit around watching us open presents. And we had to wait until my grandparents arrived from their home an hour away. Still, my parents didn't want to torture us too badly. So we were allowed to open one present first thing. It was wrenching trying to decide which present to choose, knowing it could be hours until we got to the next one. Sometimes my mom tried to steer us toward a particular gift—the one we'd begged for the hardest, or the one that would occupy us the longest while my father fed hogs and my grandparents navigated sometimes snowy roads. But the Christmas I was five, I was certain I'd found the right gift to open first all by myself. It was small, rectangular, and mysteriously heavy. My mother tried to talk me out of it, suggesting other presents she thought I'd like better. "No," I said stubbornly. "It has to be this one." "This one's bigger," she said, offering one that was not just bigger but shinier, with a more impressive bow. That just made me love my mysterious heavy package more. "This one!" I insisted. Finally my mother gave up and let me have what I wanted. I eagerly tore off the wrapping paper...and discovered a lovely package of plastic-covered D batteries. I'd like to say that that was the moment when I realized all that waiting during Advent wasn't actually about gifts under a tree. I'd like to say that, like the Grinch watching the ripped-off-but-still-celebrating Whoville, I finally understood what was important and what wasn't. But, hey, I was five. It would be a while before I achieved such maturity and wisdom. My memory conveniently blanks out about precisely what did happen next, and the rest of my family—probably in a spirit of forgiveness—has forgotten, too. I suspect my dad was happy that day to go outside to deal with hogs, and leave my mom to deal with such a pig-headed daughter. I do remember, hours later, playing contentedly with the new doll that walked by itself, thanks to my four D batteries. But I did wise up in one regard. For years after that, I always chose a first gift to unwrap that I knew I could count on—I always chose one shaped like a book.

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Blue Balliett is the award-winning author of the bestselling art mystery novels, including Chasing Vermeer (Scholastic, 2004) Her latest novel, The Danger Box (Scholastic, 2010) is a story centered around a real-life missing treasure: the lost notebook of Charles Darwin.

The Christmas of the Rattling Door

Christmas in Manhattan, when I was growing up, was a time when winter weather seemed to soften the city; pavements were not as hard, traffic grew kinder and the buzz of grown-up activity—that hum that never stops in New York City—somehow shaped itself around the dreams of children. After all, this was also a time when many of us waited impatiently for a small, round man to fly through the sky. But first, there was the tree. Our family lived in a long, thin apartment, and the tree was an event. We bought it each year on a street corner. Then my dad, mom and the three of us children carried it home, coaxing it through the back entrance of our building and trying not to break branches in the twisty basement corridor or on the old elevator gate, the kind that crashed open and closed. Once inside the apartment, the tree filled our tiny kitchen. After some dark muttering and much scientific maneuvering, my dad rushed it down the narrow hall that stretched the length of the apartment, scattering needles and sending the cats skittering. Light from the street poured in the southwest corner of the living room at all times of day, and that is where the tree came to rest. Next the old boxes of homemade ornaments appeared from deep in my mother's closet. We added more decorations each year, making them from paper, clay, toothpicks, pipe cleaners and hard cookie dough. Christmas in our apartment included a happy explosion of runaway metallic sprinkles, crumbs and half-eaten chocolates; the sugar content ramped up to a fabulous level. We made chains of popcorn, cranberries and painted macaroni for the tree. There were dozens of candy canes, which we couldn't eat until Christmas day. One year we had many German candies wrapped in shiny paper and hung like ornaments, a gift from friends. I think my parents tried to de-emphasize the commercial side of the holiday, but we always had new books that surprised, socks and mittens, something to play with, and the thrill of our stockings, in which every little thing was wrapped. The stockings crinkled and jingled; they bulged with things to be discovered. And, as Santa couldn't hang them from the fireplace, he left them at the ends of our beds, to be found on Christmas morning. Our parents always seemed just as surprised as we kids were; it was proof of magic. And then one year the idea of Santa coming into the bedroom my sister and I shared, tiptoeing in when we were not awake, began to frighten me. Badly. Perhaps we'd seen a movie that had a grouchy or drunken Santa—I can't remember where the fear started, but worries about this nighttime visit created such panic that I couldn't get to sleep on Christmas Eve. Should Santa leave the stockings on the sofa this year? No! My sister and I worried that he might not leave them at all if we made a request. My father finally pushed a dresser up against the door that connected our bedroom to the living room, so that Santa could only get in to our room through our parents' bedroom, which somehow made it okay. My sister and I went to sleep. I awoke to the sound of rattling and the thud-thud of the door handle against the back of the dresser. I screamed at the top of my lungs, "SANTA!! HE'S HERE! HE'S TRYING TO GET IN!!" Then I heard my dad laughing and saying, "Oops!" while he and my mom hurried in the other door to hug and reassure, and a dreadful but slowly comforting thought began to flicker in my brain. Santa. My parents. Those cookies and the glass of milk we always left for him on the mantel, and the year when he forgot to eat or even take one sip, but still filled the stockings. The fact that we lived on the sixth floor of a fourteen-story building, and somehow Santa zoomed up and down that endless chimney and squeezed out the old grate into our living room, complete with giant pack. Hmmm. Sometimes release from no-questions, 100% magic is a relief. Christmas wasn't any less twinkly and deliciously cozy, it just became, well, a little less unknown, and for a kid like me, that was just fine. That is, until the year my sister and I heard sleigh bells outside our window one Christmas Eve and peeked out to see a huge, dark shape just whisking around the corner of a nearby building. I'm still thinking about that one. Perhaps that's why I write mysteries. It's the rattle and then the unexplained sight in the dead of night...it's the potent combination of "Oh, no!" and "What if it's all true?" It's the hunt for proof of magic. It's Christmas all over again.