The station wagon is packed with suitcases and stacks of presents. Dad is still in his shirt and tie, and Mom is wrangling us into the car, even though we were ready to go as soon as he got home from HEB. We are twitchy as kids can get. It’s Christmas Eve night! But it is also two and a half hours from Laredo to San Antonio, and soon the Country Squire’s heater and the hum of tires on the road wrap us in a state of fuzzy drowsiness.

We wake on the outskirts of town, colored lights increasing on either side of the highway. The little houses in the country nearing town are lit they way they always have been, and some ranch fences twinkle bright blue, green, gold, and red.

Once at Grandma’s we unload the car, each of us carrying armfuls of gifts up the sidewalk to the porch, where we wait for Dad. He runs up behind us, guitar in hand. Later, when we are teenagers, we will roll our eyes at each other, and even later, we’ll remember that routine with great love, but right now, our stomachs tingle in anticipation. Mom rings the bell, the door opens, and dad leads us in, playing guitar and singing “Feliz Navidad” to grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles sitting in the living room and around the dining room table.

We stack presents under the tall gleaming tree, then make the rounds of hugs and kisses. By now it is midnight, if not later. Santa still hasn’t shown up, but it’s bedtime now, the hardest night of the year to hear those words. . . .

I wake disoriented in a strange room, in one huge bed with my brothers and sister and cousins. The room is filled with a glow of rosy light from down the hallway, where the tree still shines. The comforting murmur of grown-up voices drifts throughout the house over the Mahalia Jackson Christmas records on the stereo, mingling with the smells of the tree, tamales y cafésito, Grandma’s spice cookies. The sounds, scents, and the warmth of the blankets enfold me and I drift back to sleep.