The Same

Hopefully the air is crisp
and maybe, if you’re lucky, full of snowflakes 
gingerly floating down to the earth.
I hope you’re resting in an armchair gazing outside
at this scene unfolding.
Maybe sitting in your pajamas 
and don’t forget the warm cocoa cradled in your hands, 
the steam of it gently warming your face
or that the air around you smells of pine and pumpkin 
and that the dogs are curled up by the fire and that maybe they’ll 
lift their sleepy eyes at you, as if to say hello,
and above them, the stockings, warm,
the candy inside them melting from 
the heat of the fire.
I hope you remember the glee on your face
as a child 
as you ripped open the paper and 
searched for traces of Santa. 
I hope you told all the nonbelievers at school that it
simply isn’t possible that parents could do it.
That just wouldn’t make sense.
As the snowflakes gingerly pile up,
and you tuck your quiet self under the blanket, 
know that it will never be the same.