The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Susan took an ax and made us go with her out into somebody’s field and cut
down a little tree. It was not a tree that went dead in the winter. It had little
green spikes on its branches instead of leaves and Susan called it an
evergreen.
It was snowing, and the air was wet and cold. “What for?” I asked. Susan
and Jamie lugged the tree home while I walked with my crutches beside them.
“Christmas trees,” Susan said, “remind us that God is like an evergreen
tree—even in winter, never dead.”
“But you said the other trees weren’t dead either,” Jamie pointed out.
“Well, no, they’re not,” Susan said. “But they look dead. And Christmas
trees are a nice tradition. Green in the midst of winter, light in the midst of
darkness—it’s all metaphors for God.”
I ignored the word metaphor, but asked, “What’s Christmas got to do with
God?”
Well. You would think I’d said something really odd. Susan gaped at me,
mouth open, fishlike, and when she finally closed her mouth she sputtered,
“Haven’t you been learning anything going to church?”
I shrugged. Church was hard to follow. Sometimes the stories made sense,
but mostly they didn’t, and although the vicar seemed nice, I almost never
actually listened to him. I might have liked the songs if I could have read
them fast enough to actually sing.
It turned out Christmas was Jesus’s birthday. Jesus was the man hanging on
the cross up in the front of the church—I already knew that part. So, easy
enough. But then Jamie asked, “How did they know? When Jesus’s birthday
was?”
Susan said, “Well. I don’t suppose they did know. Not absolutely.”
Jamie nodded. “Like Ada and me.”
“Right,” Susan said. “But we’ve got your pretend birthdays on your
identity cards, so we’ll celebrate your birthdays on those days. Christmas is
like that.”
Jamie said, “Was Christmas the birthday on Jesus’s identity card?”
“You stupid,” I said. “Jesus wasn’t in a war.”
“Don’t call him stupid,” Susan said.
“It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Saying something stupid doesn’t make you stupid,” Susan said. “Luckily