I WAS ALWAYS especially happy to have a sister on Christmas. Like most siblings, we alternated frequently between being enemies and allies, but Christmas was sacred. Our parents weren’t wealthy like the Duncans, but we always had plenty of presents at Christmas. As the holiday neared, no matter how badly we’d been squabbling, a Christmas truce fell on the Cleary sisters. It was easily my favorite time of year: my mom decorated every inch of the lower floor of our house; a resplendent fir tree we’d chosen as a family took over the living room; little Santas and reindeer and other yuletide knickknacks lined every windowsill; and my mom baked and baked. My dad was almost as excited as I was when Schweitzer opened in late November, and after that he would take me up every weekend. By the time I was ten, I could ski everything he skied. On weekdays when he was working, Blair and Luke’s mom, Ann—who’d left her job after her eldest was born—would often take us up after school. She never liked to ski and so would wait for us in the lodge, reading a book.

In order to quench the over-the-top excitement of the holiday, my parents let Penny and me open one present on Christmas Eve. Once we were old enough to actually buy gifts with our allowances, we made a tradition of opening each other’s. Penny was always a thoughtful gift giver. Somewhere in the closets of my parents’ house I still have a gorgeous forest-green scarf she gave me when we were teenagers. I remember thinking it was extremely sophisticated, like something I’d see one of the fancy ski bunnies wearing in the lodge.

After gifts, we’d leave cookies for Santa and carrots for Rudolph, and I’d sleep in the pullout trundle bed in Penny’s room. We’d wake at the crack of dawn and count the minutes until 7:00 a.m., when we were officially allowed to go and wake up our parents. Penny, like all older siblings, discovered the truth about Santa Claus long before I did, so for a couple of years, she was complicit in the ruse along with my parents. Looking back, that seems like a very sweet lie in the midst of many others less benign.