Christmas has always been a time when families want to be together.
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For the Pham family of Downer, their time together came after seven years of separation, The Canberra Times reported 41 years ago today.
When communist troops smashed their way into Saigon in 1975, the nightmares began for the family of Quang Lan Pham, starting a period of separation which seemed to have no promise of ending.
A republic foreign ministry official, Mr Pham, (with his wife, Lan, and their daughter, Anne), had left three sons behind in Canberra to complete their education when he had been posted back to Saigon in 1973.
None of them could know that they would not see each other again for such a long time.
Mr Pham was sentenced to a term in a "re-education centre" where all were forced to appear to accept the doctrines of the new masters of their country.
He was allowed to rejoin his wife and daughter. Having serviced the old regime, he could not get a job and managed to survive by selling off family possessions until there was enough money to buy their way aboard the refugee boats.
After a nightmare journey in which their craft was attacked by Thai pirates, their names were distributed by Australian High Commission officials in Kuala Lumpur.
And as they say, the rest is history.
