Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at

Host: The snow fell like ashes in the cold night — soft, patient, eternal. Streetlights glowed through the white veil, turning the small suburban neighborhood into a scene carved from memory and melancholy. Through a frost-edged window, warm light pulsed from within a modest house where laughter had once echoed like music.

Host: Inside, the air smelled of roast turkey, cinnamon, and something quieter — nostalgia mixed with a touch of loneliness. The living room was dressed in its annual disguise: garlands, candles, the flicker of Christmas lights reflecting off old family photos on the mantel.

Host: Jack sat near the fireplace, his hands clasped, his eyes reflecting the dance of the flames. Jeeny stood at the window, watching the slow fall of the snow, her breath fogging the glass. Between them, silence stretched — the kind of silence only holidays can hold, filled with both presence and absence.

Jeeny: “You can smell it, can’t you?” she murmured, her voice soft. “The turkey, the pine, the ghosts of everyone who used to fill this room.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said, his tone low, a hint of bitterness curling beneath the word. “Smells like nostalgia pretending to be happiness.”

Jeeny: She turned toward him, her brow furrowed slightly. “You never let yourself enjoy it, do you?”

Jack: “Enjoy what? The performance? The annual reunion where everyone pretends we’re still a family?”

Host: He gave a short, humorless laugh, his eyes hardening against the warmth around him. The firelight cast sharp shadows across his face, emphasizing the distance in his gaze.

Jack: “You know what Christmas really is for me, Jeeny? It’s a reminder. A once-a-year illusion where everyone shows up, eats, smiles — and then disappears again. Amanda Lindhout said it perfectly: Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother’s roast turkey. It’s all temporary. After the meal, everyone sinks back into their own worlds, like stones into water.”

Jeeny: “Maybe,” she said quietly. “But isn’t that what makes it sacred? That for one day, the scattered pieces remember they belong to something whole?”

Host: She moved closer, the soft glow of the tree lights painting her face in shifting colors — red, gold, green. Her eyes were full of a quiet conviction that could not be argued away.

Jack: “You sound like a priest of lost causes.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe just someone who still believes in small miracles.”

Jack: “Miracles,” he repeated, the word landing on his tongue like a forgotten taste. “You mean the miracle of pretending to love people you barely know anymore?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, shaking her head. “The miracle of remembering love even when time tries to erase it.”

Host: The fire popped, a tiny explosion of embers lighting the air for a heartbeat. Jack’s eyes flickered toward the old family photograph on the mantel — himself, younger, standing between two brothers, their arms around each other, their smiles unforced.

Jack: “You know, I used to wait all year for this. For them to come home. My brothers — they’d walk in, full of noise, stories, laughter. And for a few hours, everything felt… normal. Like we hadn’t grown apart, like Dad wasn’t sick, like life wasn’t just this long drift of separate silences. But as soon as the plates were cleared, they were already gone again. And I’d be left here, washing dishes, wondering if any of it had been real.”

Jeeny: “It was real,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Moments don’t lose their truth just because they end. You can’t measure love in longevity. You measure it in warmth — even fleeting warmth.”

Jack: “Warmth fades.”

Jeeny: “But it returns. Every year. That’s the point, Jack. The table fills, the stories start again, even if only for a night. That’s not emptiness — that’s endurance.”

Host: The wind pressed against the window, rattling the old frame. Outside, the snow was thick now, blanketing the world in silence. The fire hissed softly, alive in its small rebellion against the dark.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic, Jeeny, but you and I both know people don’t come together out of love. They come together out of guilt, out of habit, out of the fear of being alone.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s still a kind of love,” she replied. “A fragile one, but real. Even guilt is proof of connection. The worst thing isn’t people coming home for the wrong reasons. It’s when they stop coming home at all.”

Host: Her words lingered like a soft echo, sinking into the space between them. Jack stared into the fire, his expression unreadable — then, slowly, the edges of it softened.

Jack: “You think people can change? That families that have cracked can somehow find the old shape again?”

Jeeny: “Not the old shape,” she said. “But maybe a new one. Every reunion is a chance to redraw the lines — to start again. You don’t go home to find what was. You go home to create what could be.”

Host: She sat beside him now, the firelight glinting in her eyes. He watched her for a long moment, then glanced again at the photo.

Jack: “You sound like Mom used to. She’d always say, ‘One day, you’ll thank the years for what they took — because what’s left will finally be honest.’ I never understood that.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re starting to.”

Host: Outside, the wind quieted. The snow fell slower now, drifting like soft whispers through the night. The house felt smaller, cozier — as though it had exhaled after years of holding its breath.

Jack: “You know,” he said, “I used to think the world got colder the older you got. But maybe it’s just that you notice the warmth less often.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe you stop letting yourself feel it. Maybe tonight, you can.”

Host: Jack looked at her then — really looked — and something in his face shifted. The guardedness, the sarcasm, all fell away for a moment, revealing a man still capable of tenderness.

Jack: “What about you?” he asked. “What does Christmas mean to you?”

Jeeny: “It means forgiveness,” she said. “For the ones who left, for the ones who stayed, and for ourselves — for believing that love should always look the same.”

Host: The fire crackled gently, the flames lowering but still alive. Jack leaned back, exhaling slowly, as if releasing years of unspoken words.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the intelligence of the heart — adapting to absence.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said, smiling faintly. “Every family learns to love through absence. Maybe that’s what Amanda Lindhout was really saying — that Christmas wasn’t about who came home, but that home itself waited.”

Host: The clock struck midnight. The house held its silence — not empty, but full, the way a pause between notes can still carry music.

Host: Outside, the snow stopped. A faint moonlight slipped through the clouds, landing on the windowpane like a blessing. Inside, the last of the firelight trembled across Jack’s and Jeeny’s faces — two souls suspended between memory and renewal.

Host: And in that fragile, wordless peace, something ancient stirred — not joy, not sorrow, but the quiet realization that home isn’t where everyone gathers.

Host: Home is where, even in their absence, they are still loved.