My father died at home the day after New Year's Day five years ago. My brother and I were with him that final month and we had a semblance of one last Christmas together there in the house that we had grown up in. That is some consolation, I guess, but it wasn't my best Christmas ever. We miss him very much still and when one of us does something lovely that he would have done or enjoys something that he first introduced us to, we send the other one an email that says, "Thanks, Dad."

When my boys were still living at home, we would drive up higher into the mountains every December to cut our Christmas tree in the State Forest. You could buy a permit for $10 (later $20) and cut designated trees (less than six inches around the bottom of the trunk) in a designated area. The money from the permits went to support the parks and it was basically a way to cut back undergrowth as a wildfire mitigation method. But to us, it wasn't wildfire mitigation. To us, it was magical.

We always went early in the morning and hiked deep into the snowy forest and brought bacon and egg wraps and hot apple cider and Christmas cookies and hot chocolate and the sky was always delphinium blue and the wind in the trees was always the only sound. On the way up, I always made the children listen to a CD of John Denver's Greatest Hits and on the way down, with the tree tied precariously to the car roof or even stuffed inside, coming up between the seats and filling the car with evergreen aroma and a thousand persistent pine needles, we always listened to the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof as an acknowledgment of our multicultural family heritage.

I remember one year Aiden drove all night after his last final exam to get home from Los Angeles in time for the last day permitted for cutting. We always decorated the tree right away, all of us together.

So, although we are busy and happy here and the holiday season is filled with kindness and good cheer, I am a little bit blue, missing them. 

So two days ago, acting under the influence of the Recipe Section of The Guardian, we decided to make Christmas cookies again. Jonathan and I spent hours mixing and baking and frosting and decorating -- and eating. It was lovely, the two of us working away together and listening to the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof.

Later, I called my brother and told him about our baking and about how we used to take cookies and hot apple cider with us to go up into the snowy forests in the clear morning light and listen to John Denver on the way up and Zero Mostel on the way down. "Twenty years from now," he said, "when they hear one of those songs, one of them will send the other one an email that says, 'Thanks, Mom.'" And I burst into tears.