With his parents gone for the night, on a cold and blustery evening in the middle of December, I was sitting on the living room couch, drinking tea with my longtime friend and I could see the flashing red glow of the Christmas lights on the columns outside the frosty window, coming from the upstairs bedroom, and I'll never be quite sure why, but I suddenly and jokingly exclaimed to him that I was concerned that something was wrong upstairs.  I then jumped up from the couch and followed the flashing red glow up the stairs, but I only made it halfway to my destination when I could go no further.  Choking on smoke and stumbling over words, I mumbled my friend's name what must have been a dozen times before he bolted up the stairs, nearly knocking me over to put out the flashing red glow that from then on would be referred to as "The Christmas Fire.”