Nativity

Nothing says Christmas like our fading nativity,

Another year unpacking it gently,

looking into fragile faces as familiar as my own family.

Tears rising unbidden, a wave of nostalgia sticking fast in my throat

as I brush dust from chipping paint and tarnished goldfoil coats.

I’ve always been one for tradition, especially in these sacred, quiet days,

and each of my rituals speak to me in their silent, enduring ways.

Velvet night has long since fallen and lamplight holds it at bay,

I watch their painted faces and feel the past years slip away.

Thrown back to guilded childhood and seeing the nativity in its glory,

clinging close to the tale it’s portraying, the sweetest chapter of the holy story.

Yearning for the bliss that my child-mind chose to remember,

treasuring the traditions that make me cry without fail every December.