His mother had not been much of a singer, Mal recalled, but sung she had. On Sundays mostly, and particularly at Christmas.

"And the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains…"

He could hear her now, and he could see their living room back at the homestead, and all the flickering lights on the Christmas tree – and it was a happy memory and as such a painful one, and yet for some reason he didn't immediately push it away

And, yes, it was that tree, and he remembered the Christmas when Charlie, the ranch hand, had taken him out to get it. There were no forests to speak of on Shadow, and not that many suitable trees, and so the trip had been long, or at least that was how he remembered it, but then again he'd just been a small boy at the time, so who really knew? They'd spent at least one night out under the stars, though, and Charlie had told him wild stories by the campfire, stories he was certain his mother would not approve of.

Or maybe, in hindsight, she would. In many ways he saw his mother in a different light now. And Charlie too, for that matter. Now he seemed larger than life, someone he had adored so many years ago, who'd seemed old and wise, though he'd probably only been in his late twenties. And by the next Christmas he was dead, crushed to death in a cattle stampede, and Mal recalled how his mother had brought him along to visit his young widow on Christmas Eve, bringing gifts and food, because she always took good care of her employees – and that was when he'd first learned of that bittersweet taste that always accompanied the sweetness of the holidays.

He still loved Christmas back then though, and he wasn't quite sure when he'd stopped loving it. Even in the trenches during the war, Christmas had come as a sweet release.

It must have been when they lost.

Everything else was lost then, so why not the magic of Christmas too?

******************

"Glo-o-o-o-o-ria, in excelsis D