India, Dec. 28 -- Christmas has a way of tiptoeing into one's home long before the twenty-fifth actually arrives. A sprig of green here, a glimmer of red there, and suddenly the house feels as though it has exhaled. Delhi may not boast of snow-dusted rooftops or log cabins, tucked away behind whispering pines, but we do what we can-and quite cheerfully at that. In our part of the world, we fashion our own winter wonderlands, sometimes with a little imagination, sometimes with entirely artificial fireplaces that hum faintly in the background. They don't crackle, they don't spit embers, and they certainly don't smell of oak or cedar, yet they cast a sort of mellow glow that-oddly enough-feels authentic in its own way. A contraption, pretend...