From the Vault: surrounded by the joy of the season

In December of 2001, Anne I were really struggling financially. It had already been a pretty lousy year, as far as work went, and after September 11th, things only got worse. As Christmas got closer, it was clear that we simply couldn't afford to put many things under the tree for our kids, let alone each other. 

One night around the second weekend of December that year, Anne and I had a long talk about the impending holidays. We never wanted the holidays to be about stuff, anyway, so we used...