White Christmas Takes Me Back

White Christmas takes me immediately back to my grandparent's Christmas tree with the magical bubble lights, and the fat and sassy ornaments. I smell oyster stew, and see my uncles sneaking outside, but neither concerns me. No one is watching the children or the dessert table, where my siblings and my cousin and I are eating one homemade candy after another - divinity, fudge, and peanut brittle. My mother is sitting with the other aunts, listening to Aunt M, my largest aunt, who hands them each a Christmas letter that says her six children have all won the Bronze in a winter Olympic, and they are the top of all the classes in the world. There are gifts under the tree, and we are pushing each other into them, to try and see if we can break some open so we can have a little preview of what is to come. No one is watching. There are too many of us crowded in here. Grandpa is sitting in a the parlor, a little tiny room, off to the side, watching the radio, as it plays Christmas carols. We never know where Grandma will turn up. She is running around the world's smallest house the entire time we are here, dropping hugs, and kisses, giving us gentle looks, rolling her eyes and such. I get here too late to care if there is any snow until my older cousin coaxes me outside and I see the glistening whiteness. Is it too dark to take one sled ride down the hill? Pretty soon, all six of the oldest cousins are out there, without enough clothes, getting frostbitten toes, and loving every single second of it. I look into the sky and see God up there, and Jesus, and know they orchestrated this once again. I never realized when I grew up how much I would miss this, but of course, I do.