The Globe and Mail

Once the kids realize it's not some rotund stranger bringing the goodies, and rather that it's what my brother calls the parental units, they also begin to understand the grave responsibility of the season -- of not hurting anyone's feelings, of appearing to madly love all the presents, of being happy and agreeable so everyone can go to bed figuring they've had the best time and gone some distance to living up to the imagined Hallmark Christmas we all carry in our heads.

In truth, there are few of those. What there are instead are the infinitely more tender, flawed and sometimes downright odd celebrations of ordinary families in ordinary houses.