Fifty years ago my father, a Christmas baby, got the best birthday-Christmas present of his life: the safety and warmth of a military hospital in Paris, far away from the raging Battle of the Bulge.
Almost a week into the battle, when the troops were resupplied with clean socks, he peeled off his dirty pair to discover frostbite on his feet. Removed from combat, he was shipped back from the front lines, arriving in Paris on Christmas Eve. Eventually, he TTC was assigned to desk duty in London, where he remained till the war was over.
Except for the frozen feet, most of the war stories we heard as children were tales of a young Southerner paying reverent homage to every literary landmark within weekend reach of London.
It sounded like a fine war to me. Only later did I realize how typical it was of my father to gloss over the less pleasant aspects of being caught up in the turmoil of a world gone mad.
The closest I ever got to a Christmas under the cloud of war came almost half a century later, when my husband and I joined my parents for Christmas 1990. They live where I grew up, in a small Alabama town adjacent to an Army post. In stores around town, you could see young women, many with small children, trying to put on a semblance of holiday cheer. Some of these military wives had more success than others in the ancient ritual of keeping up a brave front before the battle begins.
Once again, war clouds were casting a pall over seasonal joy.
That year our family spent Christmas morning anxiously waiting for the phone to ring. When it did, my mother cried. Three wars, she explained, were more than any wife and mother should have to face.
My older brother, a World War II buff, West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, was calling from Saudi Arabia, where he had been stationed since soon after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait. At that point in the confrontation we had no idea when we would see him again. Hundreds of thousands of other families shared our fears that day.
Would Saddam back down? Did the Iraqis really have nerve gas? Would they use it? How ruthless were those "elite Republican Guards" Saddam had ordered to lie in wait in the desert?
Luckily for all of us, the outcome was far less catastrophic for the forces allied against Saddam than we feared it could be. And, as I couldn't help thinking, my brother at last was part of a military venture that enjoyed widespread public support. When he finally came home half a year later, he was welcomed as a hero -- an experience that had passed him by after leading patrols as a young lieutenant in Vietnam.
In the face of danger and uncertainty, there is joy to be found in gathering with family and friends, in observing the familiar rituals, in paying tribute to the ideals of joy and peace and hope. And yet, for my husband and me, 1990 goes down in our own family lore as the season in which the Grinch Saddam stole Christmas.
In admitting that, I am also acknowledging how blessed the lives of so many Americans have been in recent years -- at least in terms of war-time Christmases. Our Grinch turned out to be no Battle of the Bulge, no Pearl Harbor.
Even the long years of Vietnam were managed so that most families were parted from loved ones for only one Christmas at a time. That technique masked the anxieties of war, diffusing the pervasive fears that lent such an ominous tone to holiday celebrations four years ago.
This year, there are plenty of crises to take our minds off the seasonal message. But lest we get caught up in the fine print, in the daily drumbeat of bad news, it's worth comparing this Christmas to others in our history. Would that every grinch could be dealt with as quickly and directly as Saddam.
This year, our family will be together, probably so busy talking we wouldn't hear the phone even if it rang. Grinches won't be foremost on our minds.
That's not true for other families. I think of a proud young father in Dundalk who recently lost his job of seven years after a dispute with co-workers who were threatening another employee. This year, Joe's Christmas grinch is an economy unfriendly to unskilled workers, regardless of the energy, loyalty and reliability they bring to a job.
I think also of a young woman staring down a terminal illness, determined to provide her children with as many good memories as time allows.
I think of people everywhere who have faced down grinches and know that, once the carols are sung, the bows are untied and the lights are dimmed, the grinches will be back.
Grinches always come back, or try to. The good news is, so does Christmas.
Sara Engram is editorial-page director of The Evening Sun.