c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and the mother of two boys.)

UNDATED _ The Christmas tree still hangs heavy with ornaments. The mantle remains trimmed with lights and fading greens. Not one decoration will be removed until Jan. 8, the day after Christmas according to the Orthodox calendar.

My family is not Orthodox. Neither were my parents. But my grandparents, who emigrated from the Ukraine, lived their entire lives in the United States according to the calendar of”the old country.” The house remains decorated in their memory.

My childhood recollections of my grandparents are sketchy. They spoke little English and I understood even less Ukrainian. Yet I vividly remember the unique experience of celebrating a second Christmas each year with people who seemed quite mysterious to me as a child.

My own children never knew them, but they know we observe another Christmas as a tribute to our heritage and to honor two people who took a risk on a new world.

My grandparents never talked much about their years in the old country. Grandma simply said she was”always cold and hungry.”Grandpa would simply shake his head if asked, as if remembering was just too painful.

Each left the Ukraine as teen-agers, neither sure where the boat they boarded would take them. They met and married in America and settled in a community of fellow immigrants, speaking their native language at the local stores and their church.

But life in the new world was not easy either. Jobs were hard to come by, especially for a man who barely spoke the language and had little education. Grandpa worked his entire adult life in a steel mill where he lost his hearing and his hopes of one day owning a store.

My children have never known hard times. They were born in a country enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity. War is something that happens in another time or place. Poverty means not having the latest video game.

I feel a need to tether my children in such heady times, to give them a perspective that will keep them from believing they deserve all this and hard times will never come. I pray they never will, but I want my children to know about the people who came before them and the sacrifices of individuals that brought us to this place.

I want them to understand that the lives they live will affect generations to come.

It is a hard lesson to teach kids who are growing up on the Internet. They live in the here and now, unable to imagine the patience it took to work years in order to buy a ticket on a ship to freedom. They can’t fathom why once free, their grandfather spent his life in backbreaking labor, motivated by the hope his children would have an easier life.

I cannot honestly say I understand such dedication either. I grew up wanting little and have had to make few true sacrifices for my children. But I remember the image of humble people who had little even in their new home. I know their sacrifices are part of why my life has been so easy.

My children’s future is so bright I cannot even imagine the possibilities. But their past includes individuals who dreamed of freedom and a better life for generations to come.

Almost every family in this country has an ancestor who came to America. Most were poor and frightened but determined to have a better life. We are living that life now.

Perhaps as we stand poised on the verge of a new century it is fitting to remember not only the famous heroes of the past but also those men and women who dared to dream simple dreams. Our children need to know that what we have today came at a price paid in the past.

DEA END BOURKE