The Gift

Snow dances through the dark night sky and glistens against the lights strung up from roof to stoop.

The window fogs from the cold, frost laces outward from the edges with crystalline purity.

Fingerprints run down the window through the fog in happy zig-zags.

A small nose presses against the glass, draws the cold in and owns it.

Tiny eyes stare through the fog and glass in anticipation. He's out there, on sleigh and in duty true.

Count the stars, watch the snow. Feel the cold on your nose.

The room is warm and smells of pine, lights spun serpentine yet gingerly across the delicate fingers of Douglas Fir.

People in sweaters all around, the old with hands cupped around warm mugs and the young with lips stained red from punch.

You tug at your sweater's collar. Sweet confections fill your belly, and anticipation swirls around your mind. Morning comes soon.

You look for this day all year, it's here, but you aren't yet wise enough to savor it.

You count the minutes, the hours. The people go home, the cars etch their brown tracks through the snow on the driveway.

The house is empty, the cold seeps in through the windows.

The days fade together, the years pass as tide.

You don't think, maybe it will never be like this again.

But maybe it never will.

The credit cards can't bring that feeling back. The songs you knew then don't sound the same.

Innocence begets impatience, respite begets responsibility.

The snow stops falling, the sweaters are long put away.

But each year brings new children, eyes tiny and expectations pure.

Maybe what you can't bring back for yourself, you can give instead to them.

You make this your finest gift. The one you always forgot to open.

New eyes and new noses around new fingerprints drawn through new fog and frost. New windows look out on new snow that dances through new nights and glistens from new lights.

He's out there, on sleigh and in duty true.