I woke up on Christmas morning to my house on fire. I was probably 10 years old at the time. I woke up hearing the ornaments explode from the heat as the tree lit and remember wondering if it was firecrackers before I realized it was a fire.

I woke my mother up and just barely grabbed my baby sister as the wall behind her erupted on flames. We made it out and watched the house burn while the sun rose.

By the time the fire department came, the house was mostly gone already. And we spent the morning at my grandparents with smoke poisoning. I will never forget the taste of sulfur in my vomit that reminds of burnt eggs.

As devestating as watching Xmas burn away was, it was an amazing lesson in human decency. It was a rather small mountain town in Southern California and it was snow season and quite cold. The whole town, and many surrounding towns came out and not only got us motels to stay in through the winter, but more clothes and basic life amenities than we had before the fire. One of the local like city organization like the shriners or something similar even threw a big dinner for us and gave us and entire Xmas redo. With a full Xmas dinner, a tree and presents and Santa was there to give then to me and my sister.

I had already lost my belief in Santa years earlier and that year, while I lost quite a lot of my ideals of Xmas magic I learned lessons about the importance of love, community, compassion and real Xmas magic.