For two of the last five years, I’ve spent Christmas in Madrid. It’s a lovely place to be, with large “Belén” (enormous nativity scenes, often with dozens of statues) in the public squares, and extraordinarily enthusiastic revelers. Last winter, I swear, one of every dozen people I encountered wore an elf or wizard hat or a bleach blond surfer wig. The jest of the revelers is an interesting contrast to the solemnity worn by the angels, saints and animals amidst the hay in the belen.

The Spanish belen, the advent wreath at St. Mark’s and the occasional non-secular carol that makes it on the radio, all remind me of Mary and her unlikely, unbelievable, yet grace-filled story. I have at least two ornaments on my tree with her image, both from my Irish Catholic grandmother. Nannie, an artist by training, took me to my first opera and taught me about Botticelli and Picasso, and yet she bought these marvelous treasures of toothpicks and recycled Christmas cards at a church bazaar. She didn’t drive anymore, so she brought them down to us on the train from Baltimore, packed between gingersnaps from Graul’s Grocery and her pink coat. Those ornaments, neighbored on my Home Depot tree by pigs from Mexico, blown glass from the Renwick, and an angel Australian Shepherd, speak to layers of memories that make this time of year so powerful, and also often quite hankie inducing.