Easter has always been a mystery to me.

Christmas, on the other hand, I instinctively understood a child. In the darkest, shortest, coldest days of our northern winter, we celebrated the coming of a miraculous child (though the mechanics of a virgin birth were silently passed over). For a week before, I went with the the church choir carol-singing from house to house in our village with a lantern hanging on a pole. At every door we were welcomed, or even asked inside for mince pies and mugs of hot chocolate. The snow-draped landscape around us seemed contiguous with the one we saw on Christmas cards, as though across the hill and in the next village there was a stable where shepherds and magi knelt in adoration of a glowing child. On this day, time felt different and even the light in the air, because this was Christmas Day. There were yearned-for gifts in a pillow…