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A Christmas was a quiet affair when I was growing up. There were just my parents and 1 . I wished that someday I’d 2 and have six children, and at 3 my house would be full of 4 and love. I found the 5 who shared my dream, but we had not 6 the possibility of infertility (生育). So we asked for adoption and, within a year, he arrived. We called him our Christmas boy because he came to us during that season of joy, 7 he was just six days old. The nature 8 us again. Within two years we 9 two biological children to the family—not as many as we had hoped for, 10 compared with 11 childhood, three made an entirely 12 crowd. As our Christmas boy grew, he made it clear that only he had the special skill to select and decorate the Christmas 13 each year. He started his Christmas gift list 14 before we’d finished the Thanksgiving turkey. He encouraged us to sing songs, using our froglike 15 comparing with his musical gift of perfect voice. Our friends thought that adopted children were not the same and they were 16 . Our Christmas boy brought 17 into our lives with his good cheer, his wit. He made us look and act better than we were. Then on his 26th Christmas, he left us as 18 as he had come. He was killed in a car accident on an icy Denver street, on his way home to his young wife and daughter. But first he had 19 by our home to decorate our tree, as usual. His father and I sold our home, where memories clung to every room. We moved to California, leaving 20 our friends and church. | 
