Christmas Eve, wrapped around a star-studded story as it is, just naturally invites storytelling at the table tonight. Close to my heart is a tale that celebrates the familiar themes of Christmas: hope, joy and family. It may not have angels, but it abounds in people of goodwill.

This story starts not with Christmas but with the first of May. Every May 1, my older son calls — or now he texts — to note the anniversary of the day our family moved to New London.

Since Nov. 1 of this year, he has a new date for texting me, the day we finally moved away. He was 8 going on 9 when we arrived. Now he is about 20 years older than his mother was then.

Forty-two Christmases in one spot would never happen for a lot of neighbors here. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard families are the extreme opposite, moving to new places every year or so, but for Americans generally, staying put is increasingly rare.

Our family moved to New London because of affordability, walking distance to school and Mitchell Woods Little League, and because we found a big, classic family house that would have cost a lot more in suburbia. We stayed because none of those things are to be given up lightly unless duty calls. Our jobs were here. We could stay.

The years piled on through the coming and going of answering machines, wallpaper, $99 smoke detectors, VHS and CD players.

The deeper reason for staying in an often gritty, regularly contentious city with an inferiority complex is that New London showed us its charm and character. We came to understand not only the limitations saddling a land-poor, urban community and its hard-pressed schools but also the limitless possibilities of being bounded on two sides by major bodies of water; of the diversity of our children’s friends’ heritage; even the glee at “racing” nuclear submarines up the Thames in an oversized clunker of a station wagon. Where else can you do that? The Navy always let us win.

Rich history and extravagant beauty touch all shores. For a long time, visitors could see that better than locals, who were burdened by the city’s seeming failure to get itself together. When the subject came up, it usually ended with “I hope I live long enough to see New London shine.”

It looks like we made it.

The city can thank lucky timing at last, a lot of hard work and good leadership, and location, location, location.

When crowds of people do their best for scores of years it is unfair to single out heroes. Still, certain accomplishments and the people responsible for them make a tale for telling the kids:

When the mothers and fathers of today’s children were still small themselves, there was a city by a river that had a deep port for ships and miles of shoreline for fishing and swimming. It had a fort over the river, but the fort was hidden behind a big fence. There were beaches, woods and people who wanted to make the city an even nicer place to live.

They built playgrounds and opened a theater where children and adults could see shows and concerts. They closed some old schools and built new ones, and even invited children from other towns to come to school in the city. They made sure every child could eat at school, and they made a place where hungry grown-ups could get meals, too, and places where people without homes could sleep.

The city was a special place for people helping others, no matter where they came from. Some of its people went through the river to the ocean in submarines, to keep peace all over the Earth. Some watched over safe travel on the water, and some kept people safe where they lived. Some took care of the sick and injured and the new babies being born.

For a long time, the small city waited for something else. What that might be, no one was sure. Because there was very little extra space, the city tried to reuse land, but that was always difficult and sometimes seemed unfair, dividing the people.

What it did have, had always had, were the water, the shore and the port. Finally, the city began to find new ways to grow in and on the water. It welcomed a role for its port in keeping the air cleaner and the lights on. It joined in making a park right out on the historic river and the towns on its shores. It welcomed a new kind of museum and made its downtown into a place for seeing, traveling on and learning the history of the river and the planet beyond.

At last the little city understands. It knows how and why people of goodwill make it special, now and in years to come.

The end. And the beginning.

Lisa McGinley is a member of The Day Editorial Board.