The winter air was cold and harsh and the cold wind whipped my chapped face making my nose sting and my eyes burn. Icicles hung from the bare branches of the surrounding pine trees and to my left there was a field I’d often played in as a child that was now just a snowy expanse, and there were few signs of life other than the occasional sound of a snapping twig from the depths of the pine forest. The front walk had always been too long, stretching 50 yards from the road to the small house with smoke rising from the chimney, and I knew my mother must have a fire going inside. I thought of its warmth as the cold ground crunched under my boots, half snow and half ice, and my breath was visible in front of me each time I exhaled. As I got closer to the steps I could hear the kitchen radio blasting Christmas carols just like it had every year and I braced myself for the next few days as I knocked on the front door.

The door opened and warm air washed over me and I could smell the spiced cookies baking in the oven and the fresh coffee brewing on the counter and my mother’s smile was brighter than the lights on the tree in the corner of the living room and she said how glad she was to see me and that my brother was outback chopping more wood for the fire and would I like a cup of coffee. I walked through the door frame and into the warm entryway with my mother two steps behind me as I made my way to the kitchen where I poured myself a cup of coffee in Dad’s old mug that would always be too big for my hands but too small for his. It was our first Christmas without him and I knew my brother would be outback for at least another hour to avoid the cheery emptiness of our childhood home and my mother hovering and the constant playing of Christmas carols that had always seemed a little too happy, a feeling which had only intensified this year. The cold wind whistled through the trees outside and my mom busied herself once again in the kitchen where the oven timer was beeping and the spiced cookies begged to be taken out of the oven, golden on top but slightly darkened on the bottom.

After a while, my brother came inside with a red nose and chapped cheeks and took a load of firewood to the fireplace in the living room. A man now, he had Dad’s strong frame and stark facial structure that offset my mother’s soft and warm eyes that were now staring at me as I stared at him. The two of us had been inseparable as children, playing tag in the field outside during the warm months and sharing books and hot cocoa in the warm living room during the cold months but we were very different now as he’d gone off backpacking in Europe after I’d gone off to college but the holidays always brought our family back together. Food and laughter and long conversations brought back memories of our days as small children when Dad would scoop us both up out of our beds and carry us fireman-style out to the tree in the corner of the living room to open our mountain of gifts and eat candy canes. We could all sense that things would be different now. But the fire was still warm and my mother still baked spiced cookies and brewed coffee and we were still a family.