I don't remember where I got the idea from, perhaps it was because we had just bought new furniture and had kept the box from the Lazy-Boy chair.  I hid the big 4 X 4 box in the garage until Christmas Eve.

When our three little children were in bed, aged 1, 3, and 5, and the older children 13, and 15 were upstairs, I brought in the big box, and got out my knife.  In about an hour I had cut a door that folded open, and windows on each side of it, as well as a window on each side of the box.  With some leftover wrapping paper, I wallpapered the house on the inside and out.  To make a peaked roof stand up I cut up another smaller box.

When the children got up on Christmas morning, five year old Alida was awestruck not by the lit tree with presents around it, but by the box.

"A Christmas House!" she yelled, and charged down the stairs to open its door.  Hot on her heels were others as they came to see what Santa had done. "Santa brought a Christmas house!" she continued, entering the decorated palace, and seating herself inside.

Soon three small children and their mother were inside the house, all sitting on Mom's knees and lap.  It wasn't long before blankets, pillows and books crowded into the house, and a lamp was brought in, with its cord hanging out the window and across to the outlet.

"Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house," I read, trying to see around their heads.

The sparkle that lit up their faces that morning had been the result of a gift that took an hour or two to prepare, and nothing to buy.  It was the best gift of the whole season.  All the other toys were opened and played with briefly, but the Christmas House became a home within their home.

It wasn't until many weeks later that the tattered and torn box had to be dragged to the curb for the garbage man to pick up.  Memories of it lingered however, and every year afterwards, an annual phone call and secret trip was made to the furniture store to get a new box, which always outdid all the other presents of Christmas.

Today the children are 5, 7, 9, 17 and 19, and still the phone call and trip will be made, followed by whatever decorating Mom and Dad come up with on that most quiet and special night of the year when the elves take over the living room and the kitchen table.

Somehow the Spirit of Christmas lingers in those Houses long after the trimmings are packed up and stashed away, and the memories of gifts under the tree are forgotten.