By Maura Keller

The cutout paper snowflakes you taped to the windows as a child. The gingerbread cookies your mom always made for the neighbor down the street. The hand painted dreidels your grandmother showcased on her mantel. The impromptu sing-alongs children love at this time of year.

Holiday traditions reflect and reinforce the things we care about. Traditions give most people a sense of belonging and allow them to mark the holiday season in a meaningful and unique way. And for people whose lives have been touched by cancer, the holidays take on a new meaning.

Celebrating Each Day

For Ginny Dixon, a photojournalist in Miami, the holidays represent a very important time in her life—11 years ago on December 10, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 31.

“When I was diagnosed, I was in the hospital the week between Christmas and New Year’s in critical care because I had gotten an infection and had to be in isolation. I was alone that entire week,” Dixon says.

Each year on the anniversary of her diagnosis, Dixon and her family have a celebration. “We call it my second birthday,” Dixon says. “For me, cancer was kind of a rebirthing process. You really are starting over—you have no hair, you shrink down in size and you really are brought back to rebuilding all your cells and everything about yourself.”

For Dixon, December 10 and the holidays that follow entail getting together with family and close friends “and talking about how lucky we are and how blessed and grateful we are just to be alive,” she says. “We usually ask everyone to bring presents for a local children’s charity.”

In addition to their annual celebration, Dixon and her mother have created a foundation called Points of Life. “The reason so many women die from ovarian cancer is because there is no early detection test,” Dixon says. “So given that I was really lucky to make it through cancer, we wanted to give something back.” The first fundraiser was a photographic show where Dixon showed a retrospective of her work. “I did portraits of different people in the community and sold them.” Over the years Dixon and her mother have done similar fundraisers through Points of Life, resulting in nearly $20,000 raised for researching early detection of ovarian cancer.

Looking back on her experience with cancer, Dixon sees it truly as a gift. “It made me appreciate life—as it is right now, not how it will be someday down the road. Until cancer entered my life, I took it for granted that I had time to do everything ‘someday.’ Now I know that today is really all I have, so I better make the best of it. I don’t see myself as just a ‘survivor’ because I think it doesn’t really tell the whole story. I am thriving, not just surviving and I am truly grateful for having had cancer; it was a great teacher.”

The Written Word

Like Dixon, Kim Garretson was also diagnosed with cancer during the holiday season. “My cancer tradition happens to fall over the holidays because I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer via tests on December 26 and 27 in 2001,” says Garretson, of Minneapolis. “Despite a grim prognosis, I had a good outcome from surgery at the Mayo Clinic that April.”

For the one-year anniversary of his diagnosis, Garretson’s wife, Carla, booked a room for him and his dog, Morrie, at Gunflint Lodge on the Canadian border. During this time, Garretson wrote a book, Niches of Clarity at Gunflint, for family and friends about “how I thought I had been a smart, healthy guy, when actually I was lazy, cavalier and foolish,” he says. “I had a pretty unique experience at Gunflint Lodge, alone with my little dog. The book details how family, friends and my dog were the keys to my surprisingly successful outcome.”

Last Christmas, Garretson returned to Gunflint Lodge with his wife and two dogs to continue his holiday writing tradition. He also created a website based on his book (www.mansgland.com). “The site is aimed at men under the age of 50 who, like me, don’t read about, talk about, think about the prostate and its health, much less even know what the gland does,” he says. Garretson expects to continue this holiday writing tradition at Gunflint Lodge and is working on another book.

A Memory Tree

The holidays can often be a difficult time for the family and friends of loved ones who have died from cancer. For Mary Sadlier, Christmas has provided a perfect opportunity to celebrate her father’s life.

“My father died five years ago,” Sadlier says. “Every year at Christmas, we participate in a tree-decorating program at Slater Park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. There is a sign on the tree that says ‘In memory of John M. Sadlier’ and we decorate it with the latest photos of his grandchildren, tennis balls because he played all the time, ornaments students gave him when he was a schoolteacher and other decorations his brothers and sisters have added that have sentimental family meaning.”

As Sadlier explains, the tree-decorating program is open to the public with a small fee of $25 to cover the costs of the tree, lights and electricity. Many of the trees are memorials. “We spent a lot time at Slater Park as a family—little league games, ice skating, the zoo and playground,” Sadlier says. “My dad was an avid tennis player, so we always pick a tree near the tennis court.”

So what does Sadlier enjoy most about this tree-decorating tradition? “Like with any tradition, there is comfort in the sameness of it,” she says. “This is also special because the decorating is shared by many who knew my father, as well as just regular people who come to the park to enjoy the winter festival they hold near the holidays.” Sadlier admits it is therapeutic for her mother, daughter and herself to decorate. “It also gives others who may visit the park a happy surprise and an excuse to call us to share a memory about my father.

“One of the hardest things about someone dying is worrying that people will forget they lived. The tree is a homage to my father’s life, as well as a symbol to all who see it—that they, too, will be remembered.”