I hear a lot about morale these days: the sagging morale of the soldiers in Iraq, the sagging morale of police officers, students and inmates. I also hear all kinds of remedies for this morale problem: painting things new bright colors, entertainment programs, counseling, better food.

One way in the old days my morale was kept aloft was the annual Christmas party. For 6 months after the party I reviewed and relished it mental frame by mental frame. I anticipated the next party with visions of sugarplums and gingerbread men dancing in my head.

It used to be that every Christmas the officers who worked in the living unit provided an enormous Christmas feast. This evolved into the work department supervisors providing a Christmas party for their workers. The school got in on the act and celebrated students and aides with parties. Everybody loved their parties and bragged on the effects of their respective hosts.

I will never forget the year one group of staff enacted the song "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." A usually stern man played the reindeer with great gusto. After the skit, I saw him in a new light--not disrespectfully with plastic antlers on his head--but I saw that he had a great sense of humor and was, therefore, much more approachable about issues than I would have ever suspected. We all seemed to get along better--not necessarily less formally or less professionally--but something was improved in the staff-inmate relationship that lasted all year to the next party.

I have tried to analyze why those Christmas parties meant so much more than some of the other treats the Department of Corrections (DOC) gives us. I think it was because they were personal. Each host, the staff members, gave a party according to their own taste. There was nothing institutional about it. One cooked food, and a relatively small group of people ate together in a relaxed manner. The DOC does its very best to give us a nice meal at holidays, but it loses a little something when you have to eat at top speed with someone hovering over you or to eat a holiday meal without friends. I am most grateful for those meals, but they lack the specialness of the annual Christmas parties.

The Christmas parties were fun. People told great stories. We all laughed and sometimes wore silly hats and were, just for a little while, normal. Well normal greedy hogs. Most of us had eyes three or four times the size of our bellies (and some of us have big bellies!) We would pile up the food and make ourselves almost comatose trying to force it all in. One year I thought I had damaged something I ate so much.

And while I am sorta embarrassed by my gluttony. (Can you be a glutton once a year? Doesn't that fall into the category of being moderate in all things including moderation?) I'm glad that I did. I have fond memories of turkey and ham and stuffing and a Mississippi mud pie that I still ponder, dream of, and long for just one more taste.

I think Christmas parties were a reminder of home. I wonder why that couldn't be an incentive--a little taste, a tease, a tickle--a reminder of what it is we are striving for: to get out, have a decent family life and celebrate our many blessings.

I think the Christmas parties have rehabilitative power. May be that's why they improved morale. They have been a reminder that there are those who still believe in us. (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, December 30, 2004).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'