The Christmas presents at my house usually remain under the tree, opened, played, likely broken slightly, but not yet assigned a permanent storage spot.

The exception is my daughter's nutcracker, an annual gift I started giving her when she was about as tall as her largest one. Those are immediately whisked to her shelf of nutcrackers in her bedroom.

I began this tradition after I took Alicia, now 12, for the first time to see "The Nutcracker" on Christmas. Since then, she and I have attended a performance each year, usually by the New Mexico Ballet Company at Popejoy Hall.

We hadn't realized it, but for years one of the dancers was someone we knew.

She is the older sister of my son Nicky, a spirited but scarred girl who had lived with us for about two years when they were foster children, rescued from a crack-addicted mother and a shadowy life of neglect and fear. I'll not name the girl to protect her identity.

We adopted Nicky, but we made the painful decision not to adopt his sister because we knew she needed more than we could give her and less in terms of how many children her healing mind could tolerate.

But that mind also contained the seeds of tremendous talent, and it seemed to me that if she could be placed in a home as the only child with parents who would nurture that talent she would one day be a star in, what, singing? Dancing? Gymnastics? She could do it all.

We believed we had found a wonderful solution when her teacher offered to adopt the girl, then 7. This woman and I became as close as sisters, and in a sense that's what we would become once the adoptions were finalized.

But once the ink had dried on the adoption decrees, the woman suddenly turned cold and hostile.

I was stunned. I could not understand what I had done wrong or how I could have so misjudged our relationship.

Our plan, my plan, had always been to be an extended family so that Nicky and his sister would always have a relationship. But the woman's inexplicable disgust with me ended any chance of that.

It was about three or four years ago when the woman apparently spotted me in the audience at a "Nutcracker" performance and accused me of spying on her daughter.

But until then I hadn't known her daughter was among the mice, snowflakes or sugarplums we came to see each year.

Even after or maybe because of that odd confrontation, I wasn't about to end our tradition of attending "The Nutcracker."

We started bringing Nicky to the performances so that he could steal a glimpse of the sister he had not lived with since he was 2. We kept our distance and sat back and admired anonymously the brilliance of the little girl I let go.

A year ago, it felt safe to let Nicky and Alicia go to the backstage door where well-wishers chatted with the dancers.

I stayed far back. While the kids' presence would likely not make waves, mine would, I thought.

The girl, still in makeup and tights, waved eagerly, mouthed a few words of recognition then disappeared into the colorful crowd.

This year, Alicia and Nicky wandered again to the backstage door. Nicky's sister, now 14, swooped up her brother and brought him inside to meet her fellow dancers.

Alicia, following behind, got to meet the live version of the nutcrackers she had held dear for so many years.

I stood outside again, my heart aching over the decision I had made seven years before.

After a few moments, the children emerged with the girl's mother in tow. I froze.

But my fear was unnecessary. She looked excited. She took photos of Nicky and his sister.

Nicky's sister spotted me. She smiled and waved, and in that moment I felt sure the choice I made back then had been the right one.

Then she and her mother bid the children goodbye. Nicky and Alicia couldn't stop talking about it.

I don't suspect this break in the ice between our families will lead to an outright thaw. Nicky and his sister will likely not have much more contact until both are old enough to initiate that on their own. We have only the foolishness of adults to blame for that one.

But as sure as Alicia has already stocked her newest nutcracker on her bedroom shelf, we will be back next year at some "Nutcracker" performance, looking for the girl we know and for Christmases past.