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Harvest TraditionsWhen I was growing up, my family spent Christmas at a great uncle's in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana. There, almost 50 years ago, my father, an avid gardener, collected some Jerusalem artichoke roots; then he planted them in our backyard in suburban Washington, D.C. My parents eventually started celebrating Christmas at home, a tradition that endures -- my husband and I live in the house I grew up in. And every Christmas we serve the Jerusalem artichokes. The great-uncle and my father are long gone; we're now the great-aunt and great-uncle. But the artichokes live on, helping keep the spirits of Christmas past alive.
Cokie Roberts, broadcast journalist and author of Founding Mothers
An Angel in the Desert
We lived in a Muslim world in the 1970s when my father worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. Outside our housing compound, the women covered themselves head to toe, and the Christians among us worshipped in gyms because we couldn't have churches. The Saudi government did let us set up a Nativity display on the Dhahran baseball diamond. All the children at my school tried out to be Mary, Joseph and the other characters. One year I won the part of an angel. We lucky angels would perch on three tiers of platforms in the outfield, surrounded by real camels and sheep. The night of the pageant, the entire community came out. I sang "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" into a desert sky like the one Mary and Joseph must have seen. I knew it was something special to be openly celebrating Christmas. After the show, I went home to hot chocolate and my tinsel tree. We didn't have evergreens. All you could grow in the desert was crab grass.
Emme, fashion model and author of Life's Little Emergencies (St. Martin's)
Yule Be Sorry
I'm one of the kids who actually got coal for Christmas one year. Well, I had sawed the leg off the dining room table and then refused to cop. And [my parents] went all the way down the line with me. I opened the package and there was coal. I cried so hard it didn't last very long. They went in the closet and got a sled and the baseball glove. I got my way in the end.
Jack Nicholson, actor (interviewed by Miki Turner in Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Hope and Faith
I spent Christmas 1984 distributing food and medicine in a refugee camp in the Sudan, which was in the midst of a famine. Imagine an empty desert basin with several thousand people, all of whom had nothing. Across the plains, all I could see were carcasses of cows and dried-up bushes.
Yet two images stuck in my head. First, I saw the commitment of relief workers from Save the Children and other places. Many had dedicated their lives to helping desperate people. Why? They would answer, "We can do something, so we will."
The second image: In the middle of the camp, a group of Ethiopian villagers had constructed a small church made of sticks and cardboard. One day, I saw a priest sweep out the sanctuary in preparation for Christmas services. The people gathered to sing and pray. To celebrate. Here, in the midst of a hopeless situation, was one determined act of faith and hope.
George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's "This Week"
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