This.

This is decorating my living room, and only my living room,
With every available piece of holiday cheer.
This is sitting by the fireside, drinking apple cider and listening to the woman who can recite Twas the Night Before Christmas by heart.
This is shortbread cookies.
You may ask if you can have one.
You may, but not the one who looks like a man.
His legs have been broken and icinged back on. He is special. .
This is not enough wrapping paper.
Too much wrapping paper.
My dad will never learn how to use wrapping paper.
This is managing not to fight with my sisters on the darkest days in winter.
This.
This is skating on black ice in winter boots,
Using icicles as lollipops,
This is mittens, hat, scarf, forgotten on the snow man.
This is the fort you couldn't knock over,
This is making lists.
Breaking lists.
Writing and rewriting.
This is advent calenders.
This is candycane addictions.
This is pleasant smiles from the grumpiest holiday shoppers.
This is the  reason I love Christmas time more than Christmas day.
And this,
This is not a miracle.
This is a tradition that is older than I am.
This is the family I can always count on.
This, is home.

You say you love that I see you through only my eyes and not the worlds.
But that is only because
You are not your bitter mood on your bad days when the world is not in your favor.
You are not a naive teenage boy who doesn't know enough to form arguments with adults.
You are not your hometown or the funny kid in class.
You are not where you plan to go to college after high school.

You are your favorite meal and the way it tastes just a bit saltier than sweet.
You are your favorite songs and the way they get silent right before the bass drops in the car and the sound overwhelms you with goosebumps.
You are all of your witty remarks that I will never cease to be amazed by the quick intelligence that your mind holds.
You are your kind words that I crave to hear every morning and every evening.
You are your favorite movies and why the part where they accidentally shoot the gun at the wall is hilarious.
You are your passions and deepest dreams that no one bothers to understand.
You are a beautiful living form of art and deserve to be loved.
You deserve someone to wake you up with soft kisses and quiet whispers.
You deserve someone to make you breakfast just the way you like it.
You deserve someone to make your bed and put away your clothes.
You deserve someone to be there for you even when you are in your grumpiest states.
You deserve someone who loves music and thunder storms just as much as you do.
You deserve someone who loves spontaneous adventures and quiet summer evenings.
You deserve to be loved and I hope that one day you come to see that.

Quokka
Poor Quokka
So misunderstood
The grumpiest beast in the
Entire world

When the smile eventually cracks his face
It’s something we attentively all embrace
With crude awakening glint in his eye
Those blue sapphires twinkle apace
We listen intently as the story unfurls
And cringe internally as the language curls

Now waiting patiently for the punchline
We know it’s going to be good, perhaps sublime!
With words spoken from between the canals
A true Liberty man is never banal
Rupture roars as the penny is dropped
We side glance each other, our breathing has stopped

A song is for ever awaiting to be sung
But requires some lubrication before it’s freedom
And then in amazement we listen with glee
As another verse oozes between the mountains and sea
Perhaps it’s familiar but very often it’s old
From times long forgotten waiting to be told

Our Dad, hard as nails but kinder than you know
Has lived a live focused on fun and furrow
Not always the most talkative but never short of a tale
And always the grumpiest to get going again
With hands made of leather and muscles abound
His life was handed over to others to ground

Held in high esteem since I was a child
It strikes me as insufferable his was denied
So making it up he crunches his face
Into old man grimaces to children new apace
And crumpled 50 notes are shoved into hands
That will remember for ever their dear old Granddad