A First Christmas In Canada

Irish eyes were indeed smiling on Christmas Eve in 1963

- Karen Megraw

Through the picture window on a quiet winter’s eve, December 24th, I see the familiar profile of my father. It was his silhouette through the frosted window pane, cloaked in the warmth of the table lamp light that I looked for every time I walked up the drive to the house on Christmas Eve. The trinity of candles on the windowsill, nestled in a cluster of red poinsettias, shining, tiny white lights pointing heavenly upward, always reminded me of the joyous reason for this winter gathering.

For 50 years, all nine of us—and many more as the family grew— came together this way to celebrate on Christmas Eve, all of us by some miracle managing to find our way back to the family home. It was a solid and unbroken tradition for 50 years in the Megraw family and is still unfolding.