A Door Left Open

The landlady dropped by to see me on Christmas day. She wore a black dress that contrasted sharply with the fresh snow. She narrowed her small eyes and informed me that I had left the front door open all night long. I smiled and told her that we had left the door open on purpose, that it was a long standing tradition in our family. Years ago, on Christmas Eve, my wife and I had fallen asleep and accidentally left the door wide open. I remember the way that it had colored my dreams; the glow emanating through the doorway, the falling snow in the misted light, the vapors curling their way through the dark corridors, everything as soft as the wings of angels. We had never slept so well in all our lives. More miraculous even than the fact that we weren’t robbed as we slept, was the fact that the house stayed warm and comfortable through-out the night. Ever since then, that experience had come to embody everything Christmas meant to us. So, we left the door wide open on Christmas Eve every year thereafter. The landlady listened to all this with one eyebrow cocked skeptically, and then she just walked off shaking her head.