In the Cold Room on Christmas Eve

Good morning.  I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, and unlike us, you have cleaned up your living room.  Somehow this mess keeps the warmth of us together present, I think.  Perhaps today I'll work on it.  Julia Child and I made a scrumptious onion soup for my mother's 86th birthday (something my father loved to make).  The cook in the family received the famous cookbook for Christmas, but she has yet to crack it...I thought I would give it a try.

I have been having a flashback to a very particular Christmas ritual my family used to perform every Christmas Eve.  I'm trying to work on a poem about it.  See what you think:

In the Cold Room on Christmas Eve

Boxes are wrapped with precision,

paper perfect, patterns lined up.

All of us together in the cold room,

freezing behind the bar,

folding, wrapping, drinking

Grandma’s eggnog that makes us

 giggle with just a sip of the heady,

nutmeg and whiskey milk.

We make sure the ribbon is curled just so.

I am the youngest, but I have learned.

We use only what paper we need. 

Each piece of tape is divided several times.

This is the way I think everyone prepares,

wrapping each gift slowly,

 carefully, into the wee hours,

eggnog and chatter warming us.

Somehow for all of us,

every year the same, each box

wrapped by loving hands,

admired and held up to the light,

kissed with ribbon,

laid down to wait under twinkling lights,

becomes something more.

Some piece of us, some sliver of dream

Lies swaddled deep in the folds of a sweatshirt

for him, or nestles warm and fragrant

in the pages of a cookbook for her,

expectant,

full of possibility.

Just as we are again,

tonight.