Christmas is canceled.

He’s finally making good on that threat—

lifting the tree by the trunk with one hand and

splashing water out of the stand 

onto the floor. Later my mother will mop it up 

with towels and a knowing shake of her head. 

The limbs are still strung with rainbow lights and covered in 

ornaments: reflective red orbs, popsicle stick reindeer, handmade

paper cutouts framing our smiling school portraits, a bizarre wooden clown that

years from now we’ll finally throw out 

having collectively decided it looks vaguely racist. 

He flings open the door and heaves the tree into the backyard. 

Ornaments smash and scatter across the grass. 

Christmas is canceled, he tells us,

quietly closing the door. 

Years from then I tell him

“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is unequivocally

the best Christmas song ever. 

Oh definitely, he agrees. But only 

the old version. The one about muddling through somehow. 

Yes, obviously. Of course

the muddling through. 

Yes, obviously

we’ve always had that in common.