All of this free-floating Christmas spirit and invoking of the Nativity story reminds me of my own Very Special Christmas Gift.

It was the year that my grandfather died. I was in college at the time. We were opening family presents at my aunt’s house on Thanksgiving, as was our tradition for years, because with the distance we had to travel to be together we could usually not spend both Thanksgiving and Christmas together. My aunt always had her Christmas tree up, though, so it was plenty festive. (Then again, I’ve seen it still up in July; I think some years she never took it down.) The last bit of wrapping paper had been destroyed, and we were all sitting back admiring our gifts when my aunt said, “Oh, I forgot—we have a special gift for Denise.”

The special gift! I was very excited. A special gift that came out only after the other gifts had been opened was always held back for a reason. Sometimes it was because the shape would have given it away too soon, or because the recipient’s expectation was so charged that the giver thought more fun could be had by withholding the gift until it was seemingly too late. I wasn’t expecting anything in particular, though, and this present was housed in a plain cardboard box, like the kind a ream of paper might come in. It wasn’t even wrapped.

I opened the box, unfolded the tissue paper, and saw this:

I shrieked.

For years, my maternal grandparents had displayed the Sacred Heart O’ Jesus on the second-floor landing of their house. You would round the staircase into the hall and there he would be, staring at you. During the day it was scary enough, but at night he was illuminated by an orange nightlight plugged into the socket directly below him, so that he looked something like this:

As I child I was terrified of Jesus. I have a vivid memory when I was about Aitch’s age of having fallen asleep in the car during some late outing and waking up just as my mother was carrying me upstairs to bed. I screamed bloody murder, not wanting to meet Jesus in the dark. When I was a teenager I told my mother the story, and she remembered the screaming incident but had never realized the reason.

Never realized the reason! How could she forget these eyes staring at her for her entire childhood?

(This explains a lot about me psychologically, including that whole “lapsed Catholic thing” and, perversely, my penchant for men with red hair.)

When Husband and I bought our first house, the second-floor landing had a strong, thick nail embedded in it, perfect for hanging a thirty-pound religious icon. Husband protested, but I prevailed, and for three years we took delight in scaring ourselves with little bloody-heart Jesus-thrills on our way to bed at night. We would play pranks with Jesus — I’d come home and find his head on my pillow, with the covers pulled up over his Sacred Heart, or I would suspend a sweatshirt and jeans from Jesus and Husband would have a heart attack coming up the stairs. Jesus was a bit embarrassing, as he was certain to offend all of our guests. The non-religious ones were uncomfortable that their hosts were Jesus-freaks, and the devout were uneasy with Jesus as an ironical statement. But he meant something to me, and I liked having him there.

When we moved into our “new” house (new to us, over a hundred years old), there was a dramatic staircase that had a perfect spot for Jesus. Alas, the plaster-and-lathe construction did not have any studs strong enough to hold Jesus up.

We’re renovating our third floor, though, and I think this would be the perfect opportunity to prepare a place for Jesus. We’ll get the carpenter to fortify the wall at the top of the staircase. I envision a tasteful little niche set back from the wall, arched, like a little grotto, with tiny white and orange spot lights illuminating Jesus.

When I tried to incorporate this into the plans, Husband said something like, “I’m not entirely comfortable with having that thing in a box in the basement, let alone on a hook on the wall. No Jesus!”

No room at the inn this Christmas, but by next year I may have talked him around.