So, seeing as the contest is live and I can't enter due to living a number of thousand of miles away from "The Heartland", I thought I'd give you all a little insight to the 16 Christmas seasons I have experienced in my life.

December 1990 was one of excitement for my three sisters, but especially for my big sister Martina. Her birthday was coming, a month on Christmas Eve. Santa was going to come to our house through the tiny windows in our early 1900's Cottege. With a new baby in the house, everybody was egar to buy an extra present. A "hairband" graced the babies head; Michaela Hollywood, hardly 6 months old, was the second deaf person born into the family in the year of '90. Three years were spent celebrating Christmas in that four roomed Cottege. With next to no income, my father managed to get our house built, suited for two wheelchairs. Martina and Michaela were both extremely physically disabled, and everyone felt the need to accomodate "Joe Blogs and his Syndrome" into the family. Four sisters, two pairs, 6am mornings to see the excitement on ones face when Dec Donnelly smiled or Ian "H" Watkins sang. Christmas was as it should be. Shopping, visits to Santa, hot chocolate, carols around the fire. Then snuggling into bed at 8pm, because your sister once told you the quicker and more you sleep the faster the night goes. You awake the next morning, Father Hollywood stuffing his most prised posetion into your face; a Hitatchi Camcorder. You sit on the floor, something that's taken for granted until later in life, ripping the wrapper off each present as you play with the one you opened previously. Then you are dressed in your pretty new red dress for "bang bang", as you hear the bell ring but a mile away. Your hair is pretty, and you go to church. The smell is your favourite part, but the prayers and lessons are just too long. After what seems like three hours, you come out and cross the road to the Mace and buy the usual after Sunday mass, for yourself at least; Milky Way Stars! Then it's back up home to play until Dinner. Christmas really was special, a time for us as a family of six to bond.

But as I became more aware of Christmas, the season fell apart. Christmas of 1996; Martina woke up on December 25th, but not like any other year. This year, she was coughing. Mum and Dad had to remove her from the church numourous times to clear her chest, but by December 26th an ambulance had to be called. You still remember the brave smile she wore on her face, it's about the only thing you do remember. A kiss and a hug was forbidden to keep infection away. Then the tears begin to fall. "MUMMY! DON'T LET HER GO!" You reach out, as if to take your precious sister into your hands and protect her from the world. "SHE'S NOT GOING TO COME BACK; ANGIE TELL THEM!!"

Martina never did return home. I saw her one last time, just before New Years. She returned home January 4th 1997, in her own little angel box. When Martina awoke on the 25th she was angry with her body: "I've ruined Christmas, I'm so sorry..."

I cried when I found out she was gone, initially. Then I turned to the role of being my usual devious self, thinking that "R.I.P" meant that people were saying Martina was a bad rip. In my official duty of Card Collector, I met everyone at the door, thanked them, told them to say their prayers, and then skipped off to open the card gleefully as if it were a birthday card. By Christmas 1997 things had got much worse. I sort of understood; no nurses outfit from Martina on my birthday, no card and toy at Christmas. I wanted my sister back.

As each season passed I became more aware of what death was. Not only was Martina gone, but so was Grampa Joe and Auntie Nancy. Things for Mum and Dad were getting harder, and they were working a chip van to get rid of any free time. My Dad kept trying to teach me about music. I had all the junk of the day conducting through my deaf body, but I never listened. In many ways I was more deaf, dumb and numb then than I ever was. But then the only thing I knew how to pray for came.

Many nights I would lay awake praying for her to show me she cared. I asked her what she thought of Gareth Gates or Scooter, and if I had the tingles I knew she was saying "Yes" and if not, it was a "no". Then, shortly after being assualted by a classroom assistant, while I cried in bed I asked her to come back into my life. My life had crumbled into pieces, and with no education I knew I would get nowhere. I wanted to go to Queen's University and finish a course, something three of my sisters never got to do.

Christmas 1998 and 2000 were spent in Orlando, Florida instead of normal ol' cold Northern Ireland for us. Dad wanted to know who turned the blow heater on, outside, on his first day in the country. Me, I just wanted CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM AND MILK! Mum was more interested in tanning lotion. For once we were having the closest we could to a typical Christmas. We made holiday friends, laughed at some of the sayings, and absorbed the good weather while we could. Then in early 2001 I fell sick, days after our return from Florida. I was in bed, fighting for my life, almost the whole year. On December 10th, 9 years after Martina, I got my life-saving surgery. And, I got it televised as I wanted for others.

Christmas 2002, and life was getting steadily worse. The season to be joly was no more. My classroom assistant had assualted me, and I was expelled. A fight had begun; me against the world. I missed life as it had been, or what I could remember of it. My sister was pregnant, but the baby had 50% of survival. We prayed hard, wished. I forwarded every chain mail I got, using my wish on a dear nephew. Anthony didn't survive, and for the first time I felt the lyrics and music of "What My Heart Wants To Say".

No matter how hard he tried, Dad couldn't get me to listen to the music. One Christmas, Shayne Ward won the X Factor. Even he did not have me listening. A spikey haired guy on American Idol had me listening for two seconds, until I lost concentration and sank right back into my own little world. That was, of course, until he showed up in my life again two years later.

Christmas 2005. My sister phoned the house a week before Christmas Day with the news we all longed, hoped and prayed for; she was pregnant again. And honestly, it's the best Christmas present I've ever had, a simple phone call with the words "I'm pregnant" and for once I cried, this time with tears of joy. Then there was Clay Aiken; the name circulated. I knew he did bits and pieces of charity work. On my MP3 was his songs, me oblivious to the fact. But, I was listening to the songs. When You Say You Love Me struck one chord. Then, I heard the song that I had never understood, and I did.

Christmas 2006 was different for the plain fact I had Clay and Kian in my life. I didn't and still don't know all of what Clay's gone through. He deserves his privacy on that. I wont ask because of that. But what I do know is that he's given me the strength I need. Martina brought him to me. He may sing many of her songs, tell many of her jokes, and they may be hard to listen too; but she's with me, through him, through the inclusion bracelet on my wrist...

Michaela Anne Martina Hollywood, 16th October 2007, Personal Endeavour Award 2007 St. Mary's High School: