The days on which we celebrate matter not at all, it’s what happens in the room, when we’re eating delicious food, enjoying one another’s food as much as our own. Tasting new things, having new favorites. It’s the little table waiting, earlier in the day, for its occupants to arrive, christened by Violet, who always christens everything new in the house.
It’s the arrival itself, coming off a day of play and hugs and laughter, coming off the looking together for the birthday gift for dad, the drive through the gate to the farm, which itself knows how to welcome the family who loves it so.
It’s the run up the stairs to the living room, the instant seating at the little table, then playtime, the food, more play, the gifts.
It’s when every person in the room loves everyone’s gifts as much as they do their own. The way everyone in the room exclaims with smiles and satisfaction and joy. The pure absence of awkwardness and tension. It’s the way the gifts become immediate activities, shared, delighted in all together. All the smiles, all the hugs, the Christmas basket monster who makes everyone laugh.
The stockings, such delight in tiny things, treats and little gifts. The sharing, the trading.
And it is the gathering of things to take home, the dogs, the cats, the leavetaking that is not goodbye but simply until tomorrow, until our next time together, such fun to pack the car and give second and third and fourth hugs.
The bird call I do not recognize in the darkening forest beside us. It occurs to me it could be the phoenix.
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