Dear President-Elect Trump:
I’ve been thinking today about my favorite Christmas Eve, ever.
December 2004 found Chelom and me and our children in Ukraine.
In November 2004 we had left the United States, having agreed to work with the American Bar Association in assisting Ukrainian government in its legal reform. We closed our law practice, rented out our home, packed our belongings into suitcases and departed for the former Soviet Union. We arrived in the first week of November.
By the end of the 2nd week of November, the country was ripped apart by political election fraud, and the Orange Revolution began. We remained in Ukraine for the first six weeks of the peaceful revolution. But, a few days before Christmas embassy officials began advising Americans that they ought to consider leaving Ukraine.
We had nowhere to go, other than return to the United States. We knew that if we returned home that we would never return to Ukraine. Leaving most of our already meager belongings in our rented apartment in the center of Kyiv, we boarded an Eastern European train in Kyiv, bound for Prague, Czech Republic. Thirty-seven hours later we arrived in Prague, having wound through Western Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia before coming to a stop in Prague.
Chelom and I, Standing in the Prague train station with children ages 14, 12, 9, 7 ,7, and 3, the reality of our situation sank in. We had no place to go. We knew no one. We had no idea how long we would be out of Ukraine, or whether we would ever return to Ukraine. The government that we’d agreed to work with had just dissolved with various portions of Ukraine declaring its independence.
At that moment, it seemed clear that we had made a series of life-altering mistakes. It had taken us from a comfortable home in America, a thriving law practice, friends and family and placed us jobless, homeless, and purposeless in an Eastern European train station with six children all wanting to know where to eat, where to use the bathroom, and where to stay warm.
Seeing no other alternative, we rented a car and began driving West, with no particular destination. We felt more secure at least moving in a rental van that we could control. We drove through the Czech Republic into Austria. From Austria, we continued south to Italy. Once in Italy, we turned West and headed into the Italian Alps. From the Italian Alps, we crossed into Switzerland over a high mountain pass, winding our way through the Swiss Alps en route to France.
The trip sounds exotic. At the time, it was just lonely. We were tired, The kids homesick, and we were all a bit depressed. And it seemed clear that it was time to cut our losses and return home to America as soon after Christmas as we could.
We arrived in Chamonix, France–a lovely French Alp resort town, around mid-day on Christmas Eve. Checking into a hotel, Chelom and I left the kids in the hotel and walked through town looking for a small Christmas tree. We found it, purchased it, and hauled it back to the room. Now, to decorate it. We bought some construction paper, popcorn, string, live candles and took them back to the room and had a grand time decorating our makeshift tree in our hotel room. We had brought a few small gifts in our suitcases from Ukraine which we wrapped and put under the tree.
Sitting around the tree, we sang Christmas carols, told stories, ate great French food.
I’ve celebrated more than 50 Christmas Eve’s. None are more blessed and holy for me than the Christmas Eve we celebrated in a Chamonix hotel room with a straggly tree, few gifts, no plan, and far from home.
As we awoke on Christmas morning, our spirits had lifted. We still feared that we’d made a huge mistake in leaving our lives behind in America and traveling to Ukraine. But we were willing to see it through.
The decision we made in Chamonix to push on, to return to Ukraine rather than go home to America has affected many lives, most especially ours.
I’ll always be grateful for Christmas Eve in Chamonix.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
