A light snow fell as I drove home from a Christmas Eve dinner a few years ago. There was a trace of it on the road when I made the last turn before our driveway.

And there they were — a stand of deer, with that “deer in the headlight” look they get. They disappeared into the dense woods across from my house, and I went inside, glad I hadn’t hit them with my car.

And here’s where people seem to be divided about wildlife in suburbia. We love the bunnies until they eat from our garden. We think acrobat squirrels are fun to watch until they dig our zinnias up to bury their nuts. We love the deer except when they eat our hostas or wander out in front of our cars, like long-legged toddlers who have to be told to stay out of the road.

As more and more houses are built, more and more woods come down. The deer, who must wonder what happened, look for new habitat and walk down the roads like people, sometimes small ones.

My husband called from his basement office last week and told me to look out the kitchen window. I did, but I didn’t see anything except the brush and boulders that make up our backyard. And then one of the rocks moved and the white spots on it turned into a fawn, as tiny and delicate as a Christmas tree ornament. More movement and there was his twin brother coming into focus.

Neighborhood dogs barked and I hoped they wouldn’t find the babies and tear them apart. An hour went by and the fawns were still there, lying beside each other, still as stones. I let myself worry a bit longer, then I called Wildlife Rescue. They must have hired the man who answered for his knowledge but also for his soothing, southern voice.

“Mama’s close by,” he drawled. “She’s just foraging. She won’t leave them. She told them to stay still til she gets back.” I could sense his smile over the phone. He was right. They were gone within an hour. I picture the Wildlife Rescue people sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of a log cabin, but they are probably like the rest of us, living in modern homes with wi-fi and Netflix.

I didn’t grow up in a family of hunters. When I see deer in the fast-disappearing countryside, it never occurs to me to think, “Ka-blam!” and rush over to claim the body, or whatever you do. But I know that hunting is a popular sport with rules, traditions, and a skill set. Some people hunt for food and I respect that.

I’ve eaten venison before, but it was when I was young and thought I had to be polite. Now I would just say, “No thank you.” I don’t care for the taste and I don’t like to think of the deer who died to rest on the plate.

Hypocritical? Why yes, I am. I do eat animals, mostly the kind that walk on two legs or swim with fins. I want somebody else to kill my chicken and wrap it in plastic so I don’t see what happened just before. If I ate beef, which I don’t, I’d want somebody else to kill it and grind it and season it, then put it on the grill just as the dinner guests arrive.

My father grew up on a cattle farm where the rule was you never ate a cow you had named. A tender-hearted boy, he named as many as he could.

If you walk in the Alabama woods or in the neighborhoods near them, you’ll sense a doe’s gaze coming from a stand of trees, or maybe you’ll see her walk boldly in front of you. I don’t know the answer to the deer-versus- human habitat problem, but for now, I’ll stay in my lane and hope they stay in theirs.