It's all just a memory,

 how the snow came down and you said you'd always dreamed of sitting and reading a book while the white, fluffy flakes filled up the ground. How tears flowed when Mama read Christmas stories, and how we prayed for a white Christmas and, low and behold, Christmas Eve it snowed and we woke to a crystal kingdom, and laughed all joyous, like it was a miracle. And it was. How Grandma's hands caress the age old Christmas cookie tradition and still snitch bits of dough.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back. Back to when the Advent candles glowed golden, when the Christmas tree stood watching, and presents grinned big and bulky underneath, and all those bits of excitement shivering up inside you. I wish I could go back and not take for granted again all those times I heard "manger", and "Mary", and "shepherds", and "Baby Jesus", and "swaddling clothes", and relive an age old tradition as if it were brand new and I was hearing it like a ravaged land, raped by war and swords, and lying ripped in pieces in harsh desert sands blowing, and it was the glimmer of sparkling hope from Pandora's box winging like a butterfly over the black and white world, and it had always been there? Just waiting for me? For me?

I love how we follow lights on Christmas night, candles glowing in a darkness.
And there's the Son of God in hay and angels singing glorious streams from heaven above.
I don't want this to be all just a memory, I want this to be me, all of me. All the time.