christmas

The two children stare, wide-eyed at the Christmas tree in the Wal-Mart display and, finally, one asks, “Can we have a tree, this year, papa?” and the man with them says, curtly, without looking over, “No, we ain’t havin’ a tree this year.” He doesn’t choose to be mean, but he doesn’t know how to tell them that he can’t afford a tree, again, this year. He could tell them, he supposes, but they wouldn’t understand, so he does what he does and hides his own disappointment behind a shrug of disgust – “Just dries out and goes to waste.” The children don’t understand any of this, of course, especially because they’re looking at fake trees. And they’re kids, after all. So, they will wake Christmas morning to a day mostly like the rest of the days – cereal, milk, morning TV – and when they ask about Christmas and presents and snow and all the other things they’ve seen on TV, their father will sip from a cup of black coffee and not say anything. He’ll go to work at six and they’ll watch “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and begin wishing for next year, just like they did the year before.