In my mother’s dining room, an antique sideboard carved and joined by my great-grandfather usually groans with the silver and gold she treasures — the frames that show her four kids and six grandchildren, her parents and her sister and the two dark-haired men who got her to say “I do.”

But in December, the pictures are replaced with a snowy white blanket clustered with just a portion of her collection of porcelain houses and shops and figurines.

There is a pretty Victorian mansion and a beautiful hotel with a brightly-lit ballroom. There is an Alpine church and a weathered windmill. There is a bakery and fire station, a school and a country fair. Tiny ceramic people cluster by the Christmas tree in the square and glide across the icy surface of the skating pond.

Every year, I give my mother a new piece or two for her Christmas village. It now occupies several pieces of furniture, showing exactly the kind of idealized, Currier and Ives perfection that carols and movies try to sell us.

We rarely fit that mold when all of us are at Mom’s house, where a horse-sized dog chases kids in a circle while various people shout “Someone’s going to get hurt!” It is loud and messy, and dinner is always later than it is supposed to be because the potatoes are never done on time.

It’s also exactly right for us because it’s ours and because we are together — even if we do get on each other’s nerves. Just like it is at every holiday family gathering.

And that’s OK. We have to remember that those perfect holidays are a fiction as fragile as my mom’s porcelain hot air balloon ride figurine.

With this year’s celebrations interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and unemployment and maybe even the lingering bad feelings following the presidential election, there is a lot that could be keeping us apart and underscoring the idea that Christmas isn’t living up to its legend.

But that cookie-cutter version of how our holidays are doesn’t matter.

It’s less important that we see the people that we love in person, or get just the right gift, than it is that we have people we love in our lives — and that we make sure they know how much they mean to us.

I didn’t get to scrutinize the little ceramic structures at my favorite store this year, checking out what is new and what Mom already has. She won’t be getting a new chocolate shop or department store to add to the collection. Instead I got her a warm and fluffy shawl to wrap around her like a hug when I’m not around.

She will love it. She will understand why it isn’t part of that tradition we have established, even if she’s a little sad that it isn’t continued.

Our tradition isn’t broken. It will just be on hold. We will get back to normal when we can, with a crazy, riotous house full of people and fun and probably a couple of small fights and tears. And when that happens, Mom will open a new box with just the right house to add to her picture-perfect display.

Because sometimes it just takes a Christmas village.

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