A Christmas Eve to Remember

Please know that I am thinking about many of you this Christmas Eve. At the end of the post the other day, I asked for comments about how you were spending this very different Covid Christmas. I was touched by the openness and vulnerability of what many of you shared.

This can be both the most magical or most painful night of the year. To be away from those we long for, to be unable to exchange hugs or look each other in the eyes, is overwhelming, especially now.

Even a solitary like me gets it.

Here on Cape Cod, we are content and safe. Christmas carols fill the house with memories, pine candles flicker, Samwise and Emily snore, and my heart is full as I look back on years gone by and dream of those to come.

There have been Christmas Eves when I was in love and the happiest man alive, and others when I felt like the loneliest guy imaginable. Nearly all have been memorable. But one stands out above all others.

When I lived in Newburyport and published the Undertoad, I lived on the Grand Ar…