“Christmas”

“Christmas is family; it is a colorfully illuminated tree and a glowing plastic Santa; it is cards containing warm words and boxes containing hoped-for gifts. Christmas is mom carrying a tray of hot chocolate, a table spread with a pitcher of orange juice and a tray of oozing cherry turnovers; it is banter between siblings and satisfaction at seeing the pleasure one’s gift brings to its recipient; it is the power and feeling of the ancient carols heard for the hundredth time but also for the first; it is trying on the tie one has just received even though one is wearing a collarless T-shirt; it is watching dad do his best to dissemble gratification after pulling out a paisley scarf he would never be caught dead in. Christmas is smelling in mid-morning the turkey that is already in its fifth hour of baking; it is helping to prepare the bread for the dressing and setting the table with the fine china used only twice a year; it is eating nuts from bowls on the side table and tangerines disgorged from the narrow mouth of the stocking hand-knitted by grandma; it is watching Miracle on 34th Street for the umpteenth time and mocking one’s father for compulsively gathering every wrapping paper, card, envelope, and ribbon (even the ones torn from Mystery’s writhing jaws) and consigning them to the perdition found at the bottom of a large garbage sack.”