Christmas traditions change just about the time they become tradition. Children grow, we live in different places, leaving friends and relatives behind and sometimes even the clime affects our celebration.

We are grateful that we did not include the events of our first Christmas every year. We were living in a tiny apartment on the second floor of a house in Bozeman. When we were ready to leave for TomÕs parents home in Missoula, we discovered our landlords had already left for the holiday and, since we shared their refrigerator, Tom peeked at where they had set their heat when he was putting our milk away and set our heat accordingly. Oops! We forgot that they had far more heat than we did and their quarters were better insulated. We returned to a frozen commode and not exactly an eviction order, but such a chill in the air that we moved soon afterward.

We later spent a number of years on the west coast experiencing nothing white for Christmas except divinity candy, and then we were transferred to Connecticut. We hadnÕt had a snowfall there until Christmas Eve, and when it arrived, it was the kind that poems are written about: big fluffy flakes drifting down and piling up on fences and trees. The temperature was not too cold, and it seemed like pure heaven to the three of us. We jumped into our car and drove from Stamford to Pound Ridge, New York, just to admire the countryside. Maybe we even sang carols. It was one of those perfect little events that we never tried to duplicate but it has remained in all our memories.

A death in a family is always difficult, but even more so during the holidays. Just before Christmas the next year, we were informed of the loss of TomÕs father. With the help of a compassionate airline, we left for Montana, flying into Great Falls in weather well below zero and drove to Missoula in the snow and cold. There is nothing more forlorn than grief at that time of year. We had left Candace and our niece in Connecticut, so we hurried back, not wanting them to be alone on Christmas, and arrived late on Christmas Eve.

When we entered the house, we found the biggest tree we had ever had, decorated and standing in the corner of the living room. The two girls had done all they could to lift our spirits, and the next morning we found something even more. I had admired a picture of a field of jonquils in a local shop, and there it was behind the tree. I donÕt know how they managed to buy it, but I am sure it took every penny they had. It has always hung in our bedroom

As I said, living in different places with different people gives one different experiences, and one that we will never forget was our Christmas in Seattle. We had signed up at the university as a host family for a holiday meal for a foreign student. We got Òthe student who came to dinner!Ó

Our contact on the campus called just after the holiday break started for students and said they had a Korean boy, Yong Pyo, who had arrived early, and though they could house him on the campus and would provide some meals for him, they needed someone to help him become familiar with our money, shopping, eating and oh, yes! he had studied English but never had a chance to speak it. She pleaded, and it was not until later that I realized she just wanted to get out of the office and start her own shopping. Being nice people, we agree. We didnÕt realize how much it was really going to resemble the play ÒThe Man Who Came to Dinner.Ó This was going to be a long meal!

This was in the early 1960s, and I donÕt think countries had set up their exchange programs as well as they did in later years. And people had not traveled all over the world as many have today, so our cultural differences were not as well known and understood. We knew little about Koreans as Tom had spent both military stints in Europe. We discovered Yong Pyo knew little about Americans.

The first evening when we sat down to dinner, he gathered all the serving dishes in front of him and began eating out of each. We explained, with many gestures, that the food was to be put on our individual plates, but Tom, Candace and I had somehow lost our appetites after he had eaten from each bowl. He also let it be known that he did not like our menu, but we tried to explain that he would have to eat similar things at the campus and that he could not expect Korean food.

Yong Pyo also expected that our family would have the same pecking order that his had. Tom and I have always had an egalitarian relationship, and he set out to put me in my proper place. This presented problems as I was the one at home and, therefore, took him shopping with me. First, he did not like the way I drove the car. Actually he did not like the fact that I drove the car, period, but as there was no other way for us to go places, he had to ride with me, all the way shouting criticisms, most of which I could not even understand. He also did not know how to drive or any of our traffic laws, so this truly made little sense. I confess that I did not take this quietly.

But the most fun was shopping for groceries. I would take an item off the shelf only to have him grab it out of the basket and put it back, saying loudly enough for everyone in that aisle to hear, ÒMr. Tom not want you buy that.Ó I would grab it back and put it in the basket again and off we would go for the next tussle.

Actually it was my age that bothered him. I was in my early thirties and did not have a mother figure around to tell me what to do, so when he heard that my mother was coming for Christmas, he was elated. Here would be someone who would put me in my proper place! What he didnÕt realize was that my mother was not an intrusive person.

As soon as she arrived, he attached himself to her. Now my mother had been in this country for at least 50 years by then, but her German accent was almost as thick as his Korean. Their conversations were strange to say the least, but they found a common pleasure in listening to operas, especially ÒTosca.Ó Maybe Mother was looking for something a little lighter one day, for she put on ÒThe Student Prince,Ó and I can only wish that I could have taped them singing along with Mario Lanza, swinging their glasses of wine to the tune. Drink, drink, drink, it was indeed. I needed one!

At Christmas Yong Pyo received a present from home: the spices with which to make kim chi. We gathered the other ingredients for him--on that shopping trip he did not put things back on the shelves--and he mixed them in a crock in our basement. Daily the smell became stronger. By New YearÕs Eve, when we had a party, the entire house reeked. Our guests prayed that it would not be on our menu. It wasnÕt.

Yong Pyo was most anxious for school to start and, frankly, so were we, though we had overcome most of our difficulties and could laugh about the others. But then he discovered that he had to attend classes at hours much earlier than he liked and that dorm food was served only at certain times and definitely was not to his taste. He hitched a ride back to our house and it was obvious that he hoped we would invite him to stay with us. I assume he thought I would also provide transportation for him to his classes. We explained Christmas was truly over and so was his time with us, though we continued to have him as a guest occasionally.

We kept in touch for a number of years, but we do not know what happened to him. He had hoped to become a member of KoreaÕs diplomatic corps. If he did, I hope he had learned a little about Òdoing in Rome as the Romans do,Ó at least to the point that he would not fight with his hostesses over the food that they served.

May you all have a very happy holiday season and a merry, merry Christmas, however you celebrate it.

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