Midnight approached on Christmas Eve 2023, and I was in tears. I was curled up in my childhood bedroom in Tampa, Florida, home for the holidays and staring at the walls of the same room where I’d slept each Christmas Eve from ages 6 to 18. Back then, I’d drifted off to sleep anticipating the rituals of Christmas morning. That night, however, there were no presents under the tree, and my dad had gone to bed sullen and uncharacteristically withdrawn — partially from the dexamethasone he’d been prescribed to reduce brain swelling but mainly because he’d just learned his metastatic cancer could not be cured.

After living with oesophageal adenocarcinoma for nearly five years, my dad had wound up in the emergency room on Dec. 1 with severe weakness and imbalance. An MRI revealed fluid buildup in his brain — not unexpected, given that he’d had surgeries two years in a row to remove brain metastases, followed by multiple rounds of targeted radiation.

We initially held onto hope that these symptoms were side effects from previous treatments. But after meeting with his neuro-oncological team, we learned that stubborn cancer cells were still present in his brain tissue.

My dad’s options were limited: undergo a more aggressive surgery and risk permanent immobility and cognitive loss, or meet with a specialist who could prescribe drugs that might slow progression. Neither treatment was guaranteed to work, and neither offered a cure. My dad refused a third brain surgery and chose the second option.

I immediately booked a flight home from San Francisco to attend his appointments.

Christmas was nearing, but my parents and I couldn’t think about shopping or baking cookies. I knew we were all wondering the same thing, though we were each too afraid to say it out loud: Was this our last Christmas together?

The author and her parents in San Francisco circa 1988.

Meanwhile, I tried not to give into the jealousy and sorrow I felt as I scrolled through photos of my friends’ holiday celebrations. When I joined my dad on the couch to watch Tampa Bay Buccaneers games, I found myself resenting the colourful lights on the pirate ship that rises above Raymond James Stadium’s north end zone. It felt like everyone was merry and bright except us.

Still, we kept our ritual of decorating the Christmas tree. We covered it in red satin doves, ornaments purchased as mementos throughout my parents’ 50-year relationship, Hummels that had belonged to my grandparents, and the kind of midcentury-style tinsel that dripped from the branches like icicles.

Beneath the tree, instead of presents, the 20 My Little Ponies I’d played with as a child paraded across the handmade skirt.

I had found them in a Tupperware container shoved in the back of our office closet about a week before Christmas. Most were first-generation ponies from the 1980s and early 1990s, but some were the second-generation ponies I’d bought in seventh and eighth grade with my allowance money and kept hidden from my friends because I’d have been mortified if they knew I was still collecting them. I also found a couple of miniatures from McDonald’s Happy Meals.

I’d assumed my beloved plastic ponies had been donated long ago or ended up in a landfill somewhere, so I was shocked to see them all in relatively good condition — nothing worse than tangled manes and tails, and a few smudges from when I’d tried to paint their hooves with nail polish.

For the uninitiated, My Little Pony is toy line and franchise created by Bonnie Zacherle for Hasbro. According to the Strong National Museum of Play, the prototype launched in 1981 as My Pretty Pony, an 11-inch-tall toy that could swish its tail, wiggle its ears and wink. When the toy failed to gain traction, it was rebranded in 1983 as My Little Pony: a smaller version with a soft plastic body, fantastical........

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