Our parents filled
Our house with traditions
From First Day School Photos
To Birthday Cake Wishings,

Easter Egg hunting,
Super Bowl gatherings,
July 4^th bunting,
Dad’s New Years Toast blatherings.

Among all of it Christmas
Came with the most:
An Elf on the Shelf,
Those chestnuts to roast,

Stockings and trimmings,
Caroling, punch
For my sister with the Christmas Eve birthday,
a brunch.

They were all great
But each year the best
Was what kicked off our annual
Red and green fest.

It took place the night
We put up the tree
Then with tinsel and lights
Made it bright and shiny.

We added the ornaments:
Bells, candy canes,
Small wood nutcrackers,
Cool metal trains.

Then those gorgeous glass globes,
Too many to count,
From the trunk to the star,
An amazing amount.

Mom loved them so
They were her cherished prize,
It was tradition just seeing
How they glimmered her eyes.

All but one, every year,
The last left in the box.
Spotting it, Mom’s eyes and
Smile thinned like a fox.

We all sat to watch,
Dad was included,
Knowing Christmas couldn’t start
‘Till this moment concluded:

Mom removing the final
Gorgeous glass globe
And carefully lifting it
Beside her ear lobe,

She made like her fave
Doc Gooden on the hill,
Kicked her leg high
And fired a pill

In our open brick hearth
Where shattering mixed with flames
Made us cheer as if Doc
Just tossed a perfect game.

“Now Christmas time’s back,”
to us exclaimed my Mother.
“And we’ve broken one globe.
Let us not break another.”

In our family everyone’s a bit
Different from the rest
But no one in our house
Disputes which tradition’s best.