A Christmas of Her Own
Marta’s boots marked the only tracks on the lane. Fresh snow, deep and untouched, hushed everything. No wind, no distant cars—just the steady crunch of her steps. A heavy loneliness walked with her. This Christmas, she was somewhere new: a quiet country village instead of the cobbled, noisy streets back home. No market stalls, no spiced cake smells leaking from bakeries, no voices shouting her name. Nothing felt like Christmas at all.
She cut through a sleeping woods. Branches glowing in white and hung low. Then, in all that blankness a shock of color was like a holly bush dusted with snow but stubbornly green. Sharp leaves, waxy and bright, clutched clusters of red berries.
She stopped. Memory came sudden and clear: her grandfather’s rough hands, his low, steady voice. Winters back home, he’d point to the evergreens. “We bring the green inside when everything’s dark,” he’d say. “A promise. Life’s still here. Just sleeping.” She almost feel his hand on her shoulder.
Carefully, she cut a few berries just like beads against her wool mittens. Back in her bare apartment, she set them in a water glass on the table. The red was nice. Defiant. But the room felt too still. The silence hummed.
She looked at the holly. An idea came not a thought, more like a tug. Coat back on, she stepped outside. The light was fading just like the blue flame in our lighted gas cookers. She returned to the woods, but passed the holly, heading for a small pine she’d noticed earlier. It grew tucked under the arm of a big oak, branches lopsided, reaching awkwardly for light. No one would want it. Too wild, too uneven. She felt a strange kinship. “You’ll do,” she whispered, her breath a cloud.
She dug around its base, frozen earth cracking, and carried it home, needles brushing her cheek. Inside, she stood it in a bucket, packed stones to keep it steady. No decorations, so she used what she had. Twine and strips of old cloth became a twisting garland. Scraps of paper, folded into a flock of little birds with pointed wings. A smooth piece of bark painted with a yellow star from the last remains of paint. She put holly in with the pine. The berries shone like little lights.
That evening she put on a candle. The pine scent filled the room. In the flickering light her tree stood lopsided so wild telling a story of wind and struggle. She saw herself in it in here. In this new place shaped her by the journey making a home from simple things.
The quiet had changed. It wasn’t empty anymore. It was full, peaceful. The kind of quiet that wraps around you.
Movement outside. A cardinal, red as the berries, landed on the bare branch just beyond the window. It tilted its head looking in first at her, then at the tree with its paper birds and wooden star. It stayed a moment a bright fleck in the twilight, then flew off.
Marta smiled. A real one, deep and quiet.
This wasn’t the Christmas she knew. No songs, no crowded tables. This was something quieter, made by hand and memory. Her own Christmas.
And in the peaceful glow, she knew it was enough.
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