Opinion: Home for Christmas, if only in our dreams

Dear Elvira and Caroline,

We know how you both get before Christmas. You start rhapsodizing about how Christmas will soon be here and promises to be the best ever.

We've heard you belt out this aria before. You recite our holiday agenda, how we're going to do this and how we'll definitely, absolutely do that, too.

And then the four of us do what we always do. We go to see "The Nutcracker" at Lincoln Center and the Tiffany star over Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and the window displays at Bergdorf Goodman and take our pilgrimage through the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.

And that's barely the half of it. We lug home a fresh tree to decorate in the living room. We watch "A Christmas Carol" (1951 British version) and "It's A Wonderful Life." We play Christmas songs sung by Frank Sinatra. We then open our presents on Christmas Day while baking cookies and sipping hot chocolate.

But none of that will happen this year. No, this year you're both away. You're in Rome, 4,200 miles from our home in Queens, so daughter Caroline can pursue her ambition to be a chef.

And so for the first time since Mom and Dad got married 34 years ago, we'll be apart on Christmas. Our apartment has gone silent and still, all shadows and echoes signaling your absence. The twinge of loneliness that we felt soon after you left in late October has swelled into a pang.

We miss seeing your faces and hearing your voices. Our video chats and email exchanges bring us only the flimsiest facsimile of connection. We leave the TV on in the living room at night, just as you do. Its flashing images almost make us feel you're on the premises.

But we know you're right around the corner from the pope. So how hard will it be for you to keep the Christmas spirit alive? As for us, we'll see a movie on Christmas Day, followed by burgers at TGI Fridays.

And that will be OK. Christmas has meant more to the two of you than the two of us. You, Elvira, grew up with Christmas, unlike your Jewish husband. And so to you, Christmas means family gatherings to celebrate in Williamsburg and Bethpage. It means a past brilliant with Christmas lights, aromatic with roasted turkeys and fried zepolles, safe and warm with love.

You, Caroline, have embraced this tradition more openly -- and vocally -- than your brother. Because you know Christmas means everything to Mom, it means everything to you, too, a ritual you share deeply in your hearts and souls.

In that sense, we males have mostly gone along for the ride all these years. But what brings you joy brings us joy, too. That's more than enough for us.

Only this year, with you there and us here, we've learned a few lessons. First, we're reminded of how we never quite appreciate the value of anything so fully as when we have to do without it. Second, even though together is better than apart, our love for each other always cuts across time and space.

Finally, Christmas reinforces our belief in continuity, the sense that we mark Christmas present with Christmas past and Christmas future all at once -- for a flicker of a second, everyone now gone and dearly missed is suddenly alive again -- and that we're all still here, still together, still every inch a family.

The second you land at Kennedy Airport three days after Christmas, you'll both probably start right in about our plans for next Christmas. You'll sing your aria, promising that it will be the best Christmas ever. And once again you can count on us to be dreaming that dream along with you.

All our love always,

Bob and Michael

Bob Brody is an executive and essayist in Forest Hills. Michael Brody, his son, is an aspiring playwright.