A Christmas Story of Tradition, Togetherness, and Finding Our Way Home
By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2025
Every December, folks on Maple Street used to say you can tell what year it had been. They based this on the lights in the windows. Some houses glowed bold and bright—twinkling with those oversized retro bulbs that hummed faintly like bees in summer. Others preferred tiny strings of white lights, wrapped neatly around porch rails and fence posts. It was a small-town ritual that began long before online shopping, driverless cars, or video doorbells watched over quiet porches.
But there was one window everyone looked for: the old bay window at the Carson house. For nearly fifty years, Mrs. Carson placed a simple candle there. It is a battery-powered one these days. It started as a wax taper she lit by hand. It was always the very first decoration to be on the street. Neighbors claimed Christmas didn’t truly arrive until that soft golden light shone through the glass.
This year, though, December came with heavier hearts. The world felt louder. News cycles ran faster. People walked a little quicker, spoke a little sharper, and seemed to hold their breath through whole conversations. Even Maple Street, usually steady as a winter sunrise, felt unsettled. Packages disappeared from porches. The price of everything seemed to climb. Neighbors waved from a distance instead of stopping to talk.
Then, one cold Monday evening, the Carson house lit up. The sky had turned that winter blue, which looks borrowed from an old postcard. One warm candle in the window. Just like always.
For a moment, everything paused. Lights flicked on across the street. A mother tugged her kids outside to look. A man walking his dog stopped mid-stride. A teenager who normally never looked up from his phone actually noticed. It was as if the whole neighborhood exhaled—quietly, gratefully—into the glow of something remembered.
“Sometimes the world forgets where home is… and a light helps you find your way back.”
The next night, folks gathered on the sidewalk to carol again, something they hadn’t done in years. Someone brought hot cocoa in a thermos. Another neighbor, who hadn’t spoken much since losing her husband last spring, brought cookies she’d made from his favorite recipe. One by one, the stories came out. They spoke of who they’d lost. They talked about who they loved. They shared what they hoped for in the new year. There were tears. There was laughter and awkward pauses. There was the healing that only happens when people stand close enough to see one anothers humanity again.
When the singing ended, a little girl asked Mrs. Carson why she always put that candle in the window. Mrs. Carson smiled, smoothing the girl’s hair with her gloved hand.
“Because sometimes the world forgets where home is,” she said. “And a light helps you find your way back.”
As the group drifted home, the candle kept shining—steady and warm, cutting gently through the cold. It is not a beacon to erase the troubles of the world. Instead, it serves as a reminder that even in uncertain times, the smallest tradition can steady us.
And that Christmas is not a date or a sale or a perfect living-room photo.
It’s the quiet moment when we find our way back to one another—
one flicker of light at a time.
By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2025
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